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Not sure if anyone else uses (or used to use, anyway) WinMX for downloading music, but, rumor has it, it's gone for good. The site has been empty for a few weeks now, and connecting to the network is no longer possible. From what I can figure out, it seems like the company was sent a letter by the RIAA, and kaboom. No more WinMX.

What do you guys think about this? Who do you think will be next?

Personally, I understand why music companies don't want people to download new releases. I'd understand even more if these songs were widely available individually, allowing me to buy just the one I liked instead of an entire CD. The thing that bugs me, though, is that I don't listen to new music. If I download a song, it's probably something that no one has ever heard of (like Joe Hisaishi), or something that no one listens to (like video game soundtracks), or something so old that they don't make CDs out of it anymore. The music industry is clearly not losing sales to downloading in these cases. Their justification for prohibiting these kinds of downloads is that the intellectual copyrights to these other works have the potential to be worth something to someone someday...and until they are, they have no intention of making the music available.

I would be happy to pay for downloads of the songs I like. But good luck finding the Katamari Damacy soundtrack on iTunes.

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Veni, vidi, dormivi.

The problem is that not everyone has the same habits you do. So you download stuff that isn't commercially available (not entirely true; video game OSTs come to mind...). What's that going to change in the grand scheme of things? Even if you grow some highly narcotic plant because you think it's beautiful, it doesn't mean anyone will legalise it because the majority of the people who'd grow it would have other plans for it. Ie, you aren't the norm and just because you aren't hurting companies by your use of something (well, which you are in the case of video game OSTs, technically edit: unless it's some old game, I guess; I REALLY doubt stores still carry the Dr. Mario soundtrack or something. ) it doesn't mean other people do the same.

I highly oppose filesharing programs for the above reason: their main use is, like it or not, to share illegal material. So, to me, hearing about one of them getting closed down is pretty much good news. But if someone came up with a means of trading nothing but legal files, that would be awesome. Of course, it's pretty much impossible to control such a thing, but y'know...

This post has been edited by Silverlance on 19th October 2005 03:43

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"Judge not a man by his thoughts and words, but by
the quality and quantity of liquor in his possession
and the likelyhood of him sharing."

One closes, a new one is born. Soulseek and LIMEwire are the most popular I think!

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PS3 tag: TipoDLuffy

"...quite possibly the greatest game ever made"

Quote (karasuman @ 18th October 2005 22:45)

What do you guys think about this? Who do you think will be next?

Well, it's clear that the days of the P2P network are numbered. One by one, the powers that be find the methodology to close them down, because the laws in the last five years have been written to combat that very threat.

After that, you know, it's hard to say. File sharing existed before Napster. There are methods currently that seem more bulletproof than P2P ever was, and some of those methods are finding more legitimacy by the day, particulary BitTorrent. Bands who know how to work the system are seeding singles or entire CDs via BT - for instance, I just got an official release from Harvey Danger, 100% legal, straight from the band's label a couple weeks back. It was a blazing fast download, high quality, and totally legal.

I think that this will actually be the future, and that the industries involved will embrace the fact. The industry has survived for five decades on the strength of the single, not the album, and as purchasing singles becomes more common, they will find their niche there rather than trying to force sales through non-electronic channels and bullying people who download the tracks illegally. Apple has sold over half a billion dollars in music via iTunes in the last two and a half years, I seem to recall. Probably considerably more than that now, and I hear they expect digital music distribution to account for 30% of all music sales by '08.

The music industry has started to come around a little bit to find that their own pricing structure won't really keep them afloat, and currently they're fighing downloading as partial cause and partial scapegoat. But other business can show that Darwinism is alive, and you either adapt or die. Big Music is trying to change this paradigm and has yet to realize that it's a losing battle. So don't worry, because the songs you want WILL eventually be on iTunes or one of its competitors. Who knows, maybe one of the big game media outlets online will focus on game OSTs as well.

In any event, I have no love lost for P2P. For years, it's been a weak way of getting anything anyway, with the vast number of mislabeled files, virus worries, and the such. I rather HOPE P2P goes away - its heyday is long past.

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"To create something great, you need the means to make a lot of really bad crap." - Kevin Kelly

Why aren't you shopping AmaCoN?