As of now, the P2P Weblog is retired and archived. We're not losing the incredible Grant Robertson, though! Grant has joined the blogging team of Download Squad, our intensive blog about software, online services, and the on-screen lifestyle. Check out Grant at the Digital Music Weblog, and remember that you can bookmark the P2P category of Download Squad. You can also roll a P2P-only feed with this link:

http://www.downloadsquad.com/category/p2p/rss.xml

But i recommend trying Download Squad in its entirety. A little geeky, but still accessible, very investigative, and always a great read, the blog provides something for everybody.

Thanks for reading!

I'm thrilled to announce that Grant Robertson has agreed to blog here in the P2P blog, and also in Digital Music. Grant brings tons of experience, lots of passion, and great ears to the job. He is a software engineer, podcaster, and Creative Commons evangelist. I'll enjoy watching him stretch out in this space. Thanks for being here, Grant, and blog on!

Tom Mennecke at Slyck has posted a "Winners and Losers" file-sharing scorecard, a smart (if insufficiently linked) roundup of the shifting P2P landscape. While Tom notes that the RIAA earned some jubilation over the Grokster case, the underlying erosion of RIAA credibility plus the unstoppable increase in P2P use despite Grokster puts the RIAA atop the losers' column. "With more people using P2P and file-sharing technology, while fewer are buying into digital music services, it’s clear the RIAA is running a broken machine." Sony, naturally, is also a big loser. "Because of Sony-BMG’s fiasco, the future of the DRM has been cast into doubt and destroyed any credible argument against online piracy. Most of all, they betrayed the consumer."

Oddly, Apple makes the winners' column despite having little to do with P2P. BitTorrent is the big winner, though. Torrent directory ThePirateBay is singled out for having a winning year, and for its defiant pose in the face of copyright violation notices.

This weekend it's going to be quiet as a library in here. We're doing some maintenance—big, important stuff that I'd tell you about except then I'd have to be killed, and besides, I don't undertand it in the slightest. Posting in this blog will be light to nonexistent, and the comment sections will be entirely broken. Save up your rants and raves 'til Monday morning. Thanks!

I received a joint press release from the RIAA and DiMa (Digital Media Association) pushing digital music gifts for the holidays, and specifying seasonal offers from iTMS, Live365, Napster, and Rhapsody. The same old chestnuts are roasting over an open fire of hyperbole: Licensed services are easier to use than file-sharing apps (far from true is some cases), they offer higher sound quality (definitely not true in many cases), they don't transmit malware (true for the online services, though most definitely not true anymore with CDs), and they don't expose children to porn (right; only to morality-torching lyrics).

Then, this surprise: "Legal services offer other advantages over illegal file sharing services such as Kazaa and Limesire…" Well, I'll be damned. I follow the scene pretty carefully and I had no idea Limewire had been ajudged illegal in any court on earth. (GIven the hilarious proceedings in Australia, I'll cut slack about KaZaA.) What is meant, of course, and what is purposefully hidden in all such sleazy statements that infest RIAA/DiMA/IFPI announcements, is that some uses of Limewire might be found illegal if any specific challenge ever reached trial.

True or not, this escapade makes a good story. The author of the Signal15 blog, avowedly a security egineer who performs penetration testing (of the non-biological sort) for a living, explains how he recaptured hogged hotel bandwidth from a file-sharer. Our expert determined the P2P application being used, sniffed out the culprit's last name, got his room number from the front desk, and called on the phone impersonating an RIAA official. The miscreant instantly turned off his laptop and, presumably, had a fitful night's sleep. I'm not technical enough to gauge the feasability of this account, but it's a fun read.

Mere days after the RIAA won an important legal precedent that might discourage individuals from fighting back when sued for file-sharing, it comes out that the RIAA has sued a woman in Oklahoma who, according to court papers, claims to have not owned a working computer during the supposed infringement. Recording Industry vs. The People has details and links to court documents. It might take some court action to determine whether this woman was actually without a computer, or had a non-fuinctioning computer during the alleged file-sharing period.

I am very pleased to introduce a new member of the Digital Music Weblog blogging staff: Sharky Laguana. His inaugural posts will appear immediately after this one.

Sharky is a musician and entrepreneur who founded Creeper Lagoon, and spent several years navigating the corridors of label-underwritten music-making (there had to be a smoother way to phrase that). He now runs a service company for touring musicians about which he might divulge some information during the course of his blog entries. Sharky also works with the Independent Online Distribution Alliance (IODA).

Sharky's industry insight, sharp writing, uninhibited commentary, and energetic enthusiasm promise to add new dimensions in here. I can hardly wait to see him tear it up.

This item represents a fascinating study of a company's evolution under the stress of disruptive technology—if you can consider the Grateful Dead a company. And it is; every band is a business. This particular company built a relaxed relationship with adoring fans over many decades of encouraging music sharing. Audiences were encouraged to record and trade concerts. In that spirit, the Live Music Archive—part of the massive Internet Archive—catalogued an extensive collection of live recordings by year and by concert, all freely available for downloading in various file formats. No more. the band has asked Archive.org to restrict access to streaming, with no downloads allowed. Deadheads are stunned and rebellious. An online petition is in the works.

Apparently, the post-Garcia band members are responsible for the decision. The group now sells concert recordings at its site, and figures that frictionless global distribution of its archived recordings is too different from trading cassette tapes (back in the day) to fall under the old rules. Strange times. As the media power centers gradually loosen their stranglehold on artificial supply, one of music's greatest free-music hippie institutions clamps down.

Ray Beckerman has posted disappointing news for those hopefully following the Patricia Santangelo defense of her file-sharing lawsuit. You'll remember that Ms. Santangelo was the first of the RIAA's litigation targets to defend herself in court rather than submit to the pressure of the RIAA's Settlement Office. Shortly after her case was made public, Ray Beckerman's Recording Idustry vs. The People blog was launched to follow her case and other similar ones. Now, it appears that future cases will be discouraged by Judge Colleen McMahon's recent ruling. McMahon was startrlingly encouraging to Santangelo at early hearings, but has ruled against summarily dismissing the case. This means that Patricia Santangelo carry the expensive process through to trial.

Beckerman: "We are very disappointed in the Court's ruling. The meaning of it, if other judges follow it, is that no one will be able to get the RIAA's baseless lawsuits dismissed without going all through all the expense and anguish of pretrial discovery, and either a summary judgment motion or a trial. [...] From this point on I will have to advise any litigants who are sued in Judge McMahon's Part, that they have no way of defending themselves without spending thousands, probably tens of thousands, of dollars."

UPDATE: Thanks to reader imer for letting us know that G2G has been shut down. It was Google that got to it, before the music companies. It was clear that one way or another, it couldn't continue.

A Dutch student is developing a way for multiple users to capitalize on the aggregated storage space of connected Gmail accounts to share files; it's called the G2G Exchange. The site is down as I type this, perhaps because of excessive publicity and demand. Later, it will come down as a result of excessive pressure from Google or the music companies. And, as file-sharing experiments go, this one is singularly pointless, if interesting. I can imagine the pleasure of getting the connected accounts to work, but in so doing the developer is threatening Google and its users. Comment response at BetaNews is overwhelmingly negative.

If you get tired of watching football, head over to The Scene as a Thanksgiving-weekend project and start downloading. I blogged about this online-distributed episodic drama last February, and in the ten months since the plot has definitely thickened. Brian Sandro is the leader of an underground ripping team that supplies bootleg movie files to top-level file-sharing sites, from which they work their way down to consumer networks. The entire story is told on a computer screen, mostly in IM windows. Brians ("drosan" on the screen) is embroiled in trouble of every type, from multiple girlfriends to serious danger after dabbling in betrayal and tricking (so he thinks) the FBI.

It is simply amazong how much dramatic tension can build in a story with no action, only words scrolling down a desktop window. Episode 13 is taken up almost entirely by an attempt to hack into a secure server and delete a crucial incriominating file. A few IM windows and Windows command screen make up the "set," and I'm not ashamed to confess it kept me on the edge of my seat.

The Scene has reached 14 downloadable episodes (you can also watch low-rez versions in the browser). Get them all, stay up half the night, and catch up on football scores in the morning.

The Australian trial of P2P company Sharman Networks, parent firm of the KaZaA file-sharing program, is reaching a climax. The court has ordered KaZaA to implement a filtering system by which unauthorized transfers are blocked, and to do so by December 5, or shut down operation. Flashback to the court injunction that shut down the original Napster. In this case, "shut down" means Sharman cannot profit from distribution of the KaZaA, but existing clients would still function. Beyond that, of course, file-sharing would continue unabated in other venues. Shutting down one avenue is like throwing a rock in a river: it doesn't stop the current.

Of course, KaZaA is barely relevant any longer, as this page of comments on Digg illustrates. The music industry might crow in victory when KaZaA goes down, but it will be a meaningless, behind-the-times victory.

So this week we've seen two different approaches to file-sharing companies. Sharman, successor to the original Napster and loathed by the labels, claims it cannot filter itself and will probably be put out of business. Meanwhile Bram Cohen, inventor of Bit Torrent and responsible for the mainstreaming of movie downloads, agrees to filter his search engine (which shows no sign of being filtered so far, and probably cannot be effectively filtered any more than KaZaA can be) and is endorsed by Dan Glickman, MPAA chief. It is all politics; it is all appearances; it is all divorced from file-sharing reality.

Bram Cohen says the right things, and that political gift has saved his hide. By consistently and frequently decrying unauthorized file-sharing, Cohen has aligned himself with the interests of Hollywood, even as his software creation has facilitated unpaid movie downloads on a colossal scope. Repeated estimates assign one-third of all Internet traffic to Bit Torrent transfers, and although there is no measurement of authorized vs. unauthorized files, even a conservative assessment of infringing shares would be staggering.

Despite Cohen's valued contribution to quick and semi-anonymous file-sharing, and despite daringly producing his own torrent search engine at Bittorrent.com, Cohen has coasted clear of prosecution. Perhaps, recognizing him as a latter-day Shawn Fanning, Hollywood wishes to skip over the costly litigative phase and go directly to the deal-making. Today saw the first installment of that deal. In a joint press conference with MPAA chief Dan Glickman at the American Film Institute, Cohen agreed to a platter of demands, while continuing to mouth the platitudes that have spared him harsher punishment. the deal is that Cohen must facilitate any MPAA takedowns of unauthorized tracking sites located via Bittorrent.com, and, furthermore, must block search results that link to unauthorized content.

This is how I interpret what the MPAA really said today: "We could crush BitTorrent.com because it is functionally identical to other torrent search engines that we have crushed. We want to be friends with Bram Cohen because he utters politically correct statements. Therefore we are neutering his search engine instead of crushing it."

Two important points:

First, I don't anticipate the upcoming blocking to work particularly well, considering how dispersed is torrent sharing. Remember the court injunction that required the original Napster to block unauthorized content? Napster simply gave up without even trying. I speculate that this time, the deal is more important than the results; everyone knows Cohen cannot block unauthorized search results, so much looking the other way will occur while the relationship continues to build. At the moment, the Bittorrent.com search engine rolls merrily along, delivering plenty of downloadable results for every movie and TV title I enter into it.

Second, who the heck uses Bittorrent.com anyway? With ThePirateBay and many other engines in operation, this announcement is pure window dressing. It bookmarks a relationship between Cohen and the MPAA without making any actual news.

Holy smokes. Bram Cohen (creator of Bit Torrent) and Dan Glickman (chief of the MPAA) are holding a joint press conference today in the American Film Institute at 5pm EST (2pm PST). If anybody digs up a Webcast link, or has any quick conduit of information about the announcement, please share in the comments section. I have a feeling this will be either meaningless ("...strategic partnership to explore future possibilities…") or huge ("The MPAA will use Bit Torrent technology to release pay-per-download movies."). [via Cinematical]

While you're waiting for your mind to be blown (or your time wasted), here is a worthy read from the LA Times. It's about the dying era of the mass moviegoing audience. "The era of moviegoing as a mass audience ritual is slowly but inexorably drawing to a close, eroded by many of the same forces that have eviscerated the music industry, decimated network TV and, yes, are clobbering the newspaper business. Put simply, an explosion of new technology — the Internet, DVDs, video games, downloading, cellphones and iPods — now offers more compelling diversion than 90% of the movies in theaters, the exceptions being 'Harry Potter'-style must-see events or the occasional youth-oriented comedy or thriller." A stylishly written analysis follows.