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LawMeme - Compulsory Licensing - The Death of Gnutella and the Triumph of Google
by k at 11:54 am EDT, Sep 15, 2003 |
] Back in July, a number of filesharing companies formed a trade
] association to push for, among other things, compulsory
] licensing [...]. I wonder how much they have really thought this
] through. After all, a compulsory license that legimitized
] filesharing would quickly put most of these companies out of
] business. this guy makes some interesting points, but i think his final conclusion is wrong. There are still a lot of IM services out there, with varying numbers of users. What happened is not that all but one died out, but that developers built clients that talk to all the networks, and users registered accounts with 2 or 3 or more different IM systems. I could see a similar thing happening with file sharing systems... they'll become neighborhoods, more or less suited to particular types and classes of information, and clients will be built that transparently handle all of them at once. |
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RE: LawMeme - Compulsory Licensing - The Death of Gnutella and the Triumph of Google
by Decius at 12:49 pm EDT, Sep 15, 2003 |
inignoct wrote:
] this guy makes some interesting points, but i think his final
] conclusion is wrong. There are still a lot of IM services out
] there, with varying numbers of users. What happened is not
] that all but one died out, but that developers built clients
] that talk to all the networks, and users registered accounts
] with 2 or 3 or more different IM systems. I could see a
] similar thing happening with file sharing systems... they'll
] become neighborhoods, more or less suited to particular types
] and classes of information, and clients will be built that
] transparently handle all of them at once. The thing is that a centralized search system is a lot more efficient at finding the file that you want then these p2p networks. (This is essentially why I think MemeStreams is better then a network of distributed bloggers using reputation enabled RSS aggregators. The data is simply more reliable, easier to access, and easier to index, when it is all stored in a central location.) |
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RE: LawMeme - Compulsory Licensing - The Death of Gnutella and the Triumph of Google
by k at 3:19 pm EDT, Sep 15, 2003 |
inignoct wrote:
]] this guy makes some interesting points, but i think his final
]] conclusion is wrong. There are still a lot of IM services out
]] there, with varying numbers of users. What happened is not
]] that all but one died out, but that developers built clients
]] that talk to all the networks, and users registered accounts
]] with 2 or 3 or more different IM systems. I could see a
]] similar thing happening with file sharing systems... they'll
]] become neighborhoods, more or less suited to particular types
]] and classes of information, and clients will be built that
]] transparently handle all of them at once.
]
]The thing is that a centralized search system is a lot more ]efficient and finding the file that you want then these p2p ]networks. (This is essentially why I think MemeStreams is better ]then a network of distributed bloggers using reputation enabled RSS ]aggregators. The data is simply more reliable, easier to access, ]and easier to index, when it is all stored in a central location.) why can't there be a few different central-server based networks? There are different ways of doing the same thing, and optimizations that could be made for particular classes of information. i'm not necessarily saying he's wrong. i was just proposing an alternate possibility that i consider at least equally likely at this stage. of course, the whole thing hinges on the adoption of compulsory licencing, which is a whole bag of uncertainty and technical trouble. |
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RE: LawMeme - Compulsory Licensing - The Death of Gnutella and the Triumph of Google
by Decius at 11:32 pm EDT, Sep 15, 2003 |
inignoct wrote:
] why can't there be a few different central-server based
] networks? There are different ways of doing the same thing,
] and optimizations that could be made for particular classes of
] information. Well, it boils down to differentiation. Search engines are simple, and therefore there is a clear market leader. Its hard to be different in a way that isn't better across the board. Altavista indexes more content then google, so sometimes I use it, but rarely. In the music space there are probably lots more ways to differentiate yourself. I wasn't seriously arguing this point so much as the general idea that centralized is better for this. Decentralized is how you fight censorship. It will matter to the extent that censorship is in play. ] of course, the whole thing hinges on the adoption of
] compulsory licencing, which is a whole bag of uncertainty and
] technical trouble. I think the point is still worth noting... |
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