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Features: Compulsory Licensing - The Death of Gnutella and the Triumph of Google
Posted by Ernest Miller on Monday, September 15 @ 06:05:16 EDT File Sharing
Never have so many companies fought so hard to change the law so that they can so quickly be put out of business.

Back in July, a number of filesharing companies (Blubster, Grokster, BearShare, eDonkey 2000 and LimeWire - Kazaa being conspiculously absent) formed a trade association (P2PUnited - website coming soon, apparently), to push for, among other things, compulsory licensing, as noted in this New York Post article (File-Share Firms Hire a Lobbyist). 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.

The Death of Gnutella

Why do most of these companies even exist? One very simple reason: the courts put Napster out of business. Napster was an extremely elegant solution for filesharing. It acted as a massive centralized database that allowed downloaders to easily find the uploaders with the files they wanted. By comparison, decentralized P2P networks, such as those based on the Gnutella protocol, are clunky and have serious issues with scalability, search efficiency and bandwidth use. Although services based upon the Gnutella protocol have gotten better, adopting strategies such as "supernodes", they remain hampered in their efficiency by their very reason for being: avoiding contributory and vicarious copyright liability (at which they have been successful, so far - though the farther they push for efficiency and control, the more shaky the legal ground they stand on, see, Decentralization, Gnutella and Bad Actors).

However, if filesharing becomes legal through a compulsory license, what is the purpose of the Gnutella-based software anymore? Napster's liability was based on theories of contributory and vicarious liability, which requires an underlying copyright violation. To the extent that filesharing is no longer copyright infringement, Napster could no longer be held liable. Since the Napster solution is far more efficient, particularly for searches, why would anyone use a Gnutella (or any decentralized P2P) network anymore? Virtually anything a Gnutella network can do can be implemented in a Napster-like network as well. Sure, current interfaces are better than Napster's, but they could easily be ported from a Gnutella client to a Napster-like one.

All that effort, all that clever programming optimizing the Gnutella protocol, gone in a flash of compulsory licensing. Sure Gnutella will still be around, but what will it be used for? Why will so much effort be devoted to develop and optimize it? Gnutella will be, as far as I can see, a dead end technology, at least for filesharing.

There Will Be Only One

So what, you say? Of course all these companies will swiftly shift to a Napster-like network when the law is passed. Absolutely! However, it is very likely that all but one of these companies will soon go out of business. The reason is that, like the auction market eBay, there is reason to believe that very strong network effects occur in the filesharing market. After all, in the auction market, sellers go to where the buyers are and buyers go where the sellers are. If you attract more buyers, you will attract more sellers, which then attracts more buyers, and so on in a positive feedback loop. Such network effects should operate similarly in the filesharing market, though most people will be buyers and only inadvertantly sellers. For example, if I am looking for an obscure track, I will go to the filesharing service with the most participants, since I will have the greatest chance of finding what I am looking for. Therefore, once one filesharing service clearly distinguishes itself in popularity from the others, it will take off and its competitors quickly wither away.

True, there is nothing that would prevent people from participating in several filesharing services at once, but there is little that keeps people from posting listings on multiple auction sites either. People will most likely experiment with a few services at first, and there might be some shifting initially as rapid innovation occurs. There will likely be attempts to mimic Trillian for making the various networks work together. The competition will also likely be vicious and expensive. As few of these filesharing services have compelling and profitable business plans, particularly given the changes wrought by a compulsory licensing scheme, it will be interesting to see how many will be able to raise the money necessary to fight this battle. Ultimately, I think things will likely settle down in a year or two with one service triumphant.

The Triumph of Google Of course, I think the likely winner is none of the current participants. I think the winner will be Google. The most important aspect of a centralized filesharing service is fast, accurate and efficient searches. Downloaders want to find the right tracks from a reliable source. I think that Google will win this fight because nobody does searches better, and I don't see any reason why Google wouldn't want this market given that filesharing is legalized. The way I figure it, the brilliant minds at Google Labs will rather easily be able to create a P2P Google Tool that will be just as efficient as anything the competitors will be able to devise.

Even if Google technologists aren't up to the task (yeah, right), Google certainly has the deep pockets that will allow it to remain competitive and, if necessary, buy one of the leading competitors, just as they bought a certain blogging software company. Finally, because of strong network effects in the filesharing market, the winner must be able to handle catastrophic success. There must be scalability; the company that wins will have to be able to handle very rapid growth in the number of search queries their system can respond to. Interestingly, the decentralized nature of the current networks doesn't necessarily bode well for the existing P2P companies' ability to scale as quickly. I'm not sure if Google would even notice the increase in queries from filesharers.

Good or Bad?

If I'm right about what would happen to P2P filesharing services following the creation of compulsory licenses, is this good or bad? Well, I'm not sure. Google, despite its power, has been a pretty benign dictator so far. Also, I'm not entirely clear on how strong the lock-in effects of the main filesharing service will be. Somewhat stronger than the lock-in for search engines, I would imagine, but not as strong as in the auction market. The lock-in effect will determine to a large degree how much the winner of the filesharing war can abuse the system. In any case, it is certainly something to think about as we consider the merits and likely consequences of compulsory licenses.

This is a series of posts looking at some of the issues regarding compulsory licensing that don't include collection and distribution of funds. For previous postings, see:
Compulsory Licensing - What is Noncommercial Use?
Some Questions and Concerns Regarding EFF's Filesharing Policy
What Should the RIAA Sue For?
Compulsory Licensing - More on Commercial/Noncommercial

 
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Re: Compulsory Licensing - The Death of Gnutella and the Triumph of Google (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Monday, September 15 @ 09:40:04 EDT
File shareing IS legal.
The writer seems be trying to give the impression that it is illigal to share ANY files. In truth as we all know, It is not illigal to share any file, only files that are explicitly copyrighted. And even this is is not illigal.. It is a volation of copyright.


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Re: Compulsory Licensing - The Death of Gnutella and the Triumph of Google (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Monday, September 15 @ 09:45:41 EDT
actully google is part of a new P2P network Bittorrent is becomeing a very popular file sharing program. and the since it requires integration with your browser the best place to find files is google.


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Re: Compulsory Licensing - The Death of Gnutella and the Triumph of Google (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Monday, September 15 @ 10:17:09 EDT
Wow, what a lot of factual errors!

> but there is little that keeps people from posting listings on multiple auction sites either.

Except for the fact that you have to actually sell the item to the highest bidder on *each* auction site.


> Since the Napster solution is far more efficient,

A correctly-designed distributed system a la BitTorrent would be even more efficient than a single central server that must bear the whole load.

There's nothing intrinsic in the central server architecture that makes it faster, and there are a lot of bottle necks that you can't get past.


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Re: Compulsory Licensing - The Death of Gnutella and the Triumph of Google (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Monday, September 15 @ 14:20:12 EDT
The problem with free filesharing is that it negates copyright. There is no technological solution, only a social one (i.e. if a commercial system was more convenient and priced cheaply enough, people would use it over free alternatives). Check out The Open Music Model [shumans.com], from a guy at MIT.


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Re: Compulsory Licensing - The Death of Gnutella and the Triumph of Google (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Monday, September 15 @ 15:04:42 EDT
However, it is very likely that all but one of these companies will soon go out of business. The reason is that, like the auction market eBay, there is reason to believe that very strong network effects occur in the filesharing market. ... True, there is nothing that would prevent people from participating in several filesharing services at once, but there is little that keeps people from posting listings on multiple auction sites either.
As the person (formerly) behind Yahoo! Auctions, I can vouch that there IS something that prevents people from posting the same listing on multiple auction sites: You can't have multiple winners for the same item. That being the case, economics dictates that a seller should choose the most popular site. (And economics is everything in this case) The same limitations do no exist in this case: A user has no problem sharing the same file with two different programs. I do believe the network effects you point out are significant however, and that most people would only use one -- the largest -- if for no other reason than specifying the maximum bandwidth that can be utilized for up or downloading is done on a per-program basis, and running two (or more) such programs eliminates this element of control without some external form of bandwith throttling that most users aren't liable to employ. (Plus, it's just easier) --Tom Churchill


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Dumbest article I've read in a while (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Monday, September 15 @ 17:01:34 EDT
Let's take a few overhyped concepts, decentralization, filesharing, Google, and brainstorm on how we can relate them. Oh, let's not foget about Google's talent and deep pockets, never mind that lots of other companies have the same.

Unless you have equity or stock options, hyping Google just makes you sound like a blockheaded idiot.


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Re: Compulsory Licensing - The Death of Gnutella and the Triumph of Google (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Tuesday, September 30 @ 11:25:46 EDT
First, you state, "After all, a compulsory license that legitimized file sharing would quickly put most of these companies out of business."

That all depends on how the RIAA's appeal against Morpheus and Grokster goes. So far, P2P programs are legitimate, a per a court ruling earlier this year. If P2P companies are found not to be responcible for the content of their users, then they can certainly play both sides of the fence and make a decent living.

"Why do most of these companies even exist? One very simple reason: the courts put apster out of business."

Not exactly true. In fact, most of the file-sharing networks that exist today existed when Napster was around. If you had said that they have become more popular, then that would have been more accurate. FastTrack(Kazaa, Grokster), Morpheus, eDonkey, DirectConnect, Filetopia, WinMX, Gnutella...all were around during the days of Napster.

Napster wasn’t the beginning or ends all of file-sharing. People have been sharing on IRC and newsgroups way before Napster. While Napster was touted as being the most popular, these other devises were already in
place waiting for the opportunity to grow.

"By comparison, decentralized P2P networks, such as those based on the Gnutella protocol, are clunky and have serious issues with scalability, search efficiency and bandwidth use. "

Who told you this? While Gnutella may have its share of problems, the other decentralized networks don't even come close to being based on Gnutella. Overnets, WinMX, ManolitoP2P are worlds more advanced than
Gnutella. Even so, to say that Gnutella is dead is wrong...although Morpheus isn’t my favorite P2P application; it has certainly strengthened this network. Look for some major changes to the Gnutella network soon...

"Clunky, serious issues with scalability..."

Quite the contrary. These networks scale to heights Napster could only have dreamed of. Napster, at its height, held about 1.5 million users. This was supported with about 50 indexing server. At this time, Napster was reaching the end of its scalability, they would have needed another 100 servers just to be able to grow to FastTracks 4.5 million.

The beautiful thing about decentralized networks is their supernode technology. Instead of just having a handful of indexing server located in one place, you potentially have thousands deployed globally. The
benefits are obvious. This allows them to scale to unbelievable heights. You should talk with the developers of eDonkey/overnet, winmx, and Piolet about decentralized scalability...

"There will likely be attempts to mimic Trillian for making the various networks work together. The competition will also likely be vicious and expensive."

There's been talk of this for years. In fact, it has already been attempted. Shareaza connects to BitTorrent, eDonkey, Gnutella,
Gnutella2...Its been a flop.

It seems you've based a lot of your argument on Gnutella. Most file-sharers that I know, the real deal that think FastTrack and Gnutella
are a joke, would never be found on these networks. You say Gnutella is a dead end technology. You may right, but file-sharing technology based on decentralization is distribution is in its very infancy, and has the
potential to revolutionize the very way we access information.

Its funny how the file-sharing culture works. The way networks form and grow is mostly invisible to the mainstream media. There is and always will be a central core of users who are keenly involved with the development of file-sharing technology, and those who closely follow this.

In any case, I hope you don't mind me speaking my piece on this. I do
enjoy reading your articles...

tom
tom@slyck.com
slyck.com


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Re: Compulsory Licensing - The Death of Gnutella and the Triumph of Google (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Wednesday, October 01 @ 07:37:52 EDT
because google is so efficient and so many computers are on the net and not secured properly, it's amazing what you can find.
You can google for any sort of file with the search expression:
description "index of" "last modified" size partoffilename

which turns up insecured apache servers listing files.

Networked security cameras:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&q=%22Axis+2100+Network+Camera%22+%22Live+web+imaging+unleashed.%22&btnG=Google+Search

there's a way of finding filemakerpro databases too.

the minute google develops any sort of p2p searching engine it's game over for everyone trying to stop filesharing.


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