This in-depth article examines how now that lawsuits are being filed against song swappers and sharers on peer-to-peer networks and the legal hammer is coming down on those networks (who are meanwhile, struggling to stay alive in their own right, both by spending money on their technologies as well as their legal fees), most song swappers and would-be downloaders are looking for new and innovative methods of downloading their favorite tunes for free on the internet.
Some herald back to a simpler time, pre-Napster, if you will, where ftp servers and IM file transfers reigned supreme, and others are upping the ante by using portable music devices like Apple’s iPod to trade music. The problem here though is that the legal battle between the music industry and peer-to-peer file sharing networks is still raging, and should the gavel come down on the side of the music industry, everyone may be at risk-even companies like AOL and Microsoft, who furnish instant messaging software that allows for file transfers.
Sound farfetched? I can see this-even though peer-to-peer networks have perfectly legal uses and in themselves are not illegal, the music industry claims that the only reason anyone uses those services is to trade in illegal files; what’s to stop them from making similar arguments (they don’t even have to say the only reason people use IM networks is to trade files, just that the use of IM networks to trade files is damaging to them) about instant messaging? Or perhaps FTP? Or maybe even portable music players? We may eventually see IM clients come out with built-in protection to keep users from transferring music or movies. Who knows.
Regardless, PCWorld has the scoop, read all about it:
[ http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,120178,tk,dn032505X,00.asp ]