Since the start up of
decentralised P2P networks, the majority of these decentralised P2P software
manufacturers and administrators claim that it is not possible to control the
transfer of files on the networks, especially the likes of music and
video. With some P2P networks such as Gnutella and the eDonkey network,
the companies do indeed have very little control since these do not tie into the
company's network to work.
FastTrack on the other hand does indeed tie to at
least the centralised providers Sharman and Altnet to some extent. Going
by Internal documents released by Judge Wilcox, when a user users for a track on
the network and it matches content provided by Altnet, then Altnet's TopSearch
component provides legal alternatives highlighted on top of the search results
in an attempt to lure the user to these files as apposed to download from the
other users on the FastTrack network, thus showing that control over the network
is already possible. The RIAA has even mentioned this many times
before.
As the Altnet component in Kazaa software keeps
track of when a sponsored result is displayed, if the user downloads it and
whether the download is successful, it shows that it can track user's details
such as IP addresses and the content they are after (at least what is
signed). According to Priit, the Kazaa Media Desktop interface developer,
it is technically possible to do the same with any file also. Also, in
order for an updated list of sponsored files to make available on the network,
these are added onto the supernodes and according to Priit, regular nodes also
due to bandwidth issues on SuperNodes. brantdk submitted
the following news via our news submit:
Yet the question of this consortium's control over Once confidential Sharman Networks and AltNet The new document released is titled "Proposal & View the full source article |
It looks like that while users may not like the additional adware in Kazaa taking
precedence over search results, it looks like entertainment industry may take
advantage of the adware's example to take control over supernodes and even
clients on its network. As Altnet's component can push the other results
further down to show the sponsored results first, then effectively a small tweak
could make it hide the other results instead that closely match the sponsored
results.
Unfortunately, even if the entertainment industry do manage to force a filter
to be added to Kazaa, it is likely too late at this point as with other more
truly decentralised P2P networks available, the last few who remain on Kazaa
would simply have to make a hop over to another P2P software tool to escape the
filters.
Feel free to discuss and find out more about Kazaa and other file sharing
software on our Music Downloads, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) & Legal Issues
Forum.
Source: Slyck News
