Here it is Dennis..

http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11902&KW=winmx - http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=11902& amp;KW=winmx

I find a ton of prog using Shareaza.

con safo wrote: I doubt P2P will ever die out.

Heh heh...  At least they keep the lawyers of BRITNEY SPEARS employed.

I've read about a swiss company which is logging eDonkey activities and then mass-sueing users who offer selected files. Those who own the files pay for that service, and it seems to work pretty well. At the moment they are sueing people who offered a computer game, but if this method works they'll without a doubt expand it to movies and audio.

Don't use P2P ... use http://www.last.fm - www.last.fm instead. It's free, and it makes suggestions. What more do you need?

I wouldn't be very scared about some sues from a Swiss lawfirm, unless I would happen to live in Switzerland.  Are they going to hijack those sued abroad, and bring them to face court to their country?

Eetu Pellonpää wrote: I wouldn't be very scared about some sues from a Swiss lawfirm, unless I would happen to live in Switzerland.  Are they going to hijack those sued abroad, and bring them to face court to their country?

You don't understand: The swiss company contacts the legal authorities in those country and sues the P2P user on behalf of the rights holders (who have representatives in that country as well). It's really quite effective, trust me.

^ But it's a country-sensitive thing still. I haven't heard any such hassle going on here in Finland. I also think the downloads they are following doesn't concist any "Hungarian folk prog albums", but items which have big sales values (Britney), or are criminal by content (child porn f.ex.).

I still don't think there's any problem here, if you are a moral user. Of course this may change, but they will never get me alive! I'll take the first one of them approching me with me! I have an axe!

^ Laws are not international. I'm not saying that they wouldn't try to do it, but I doubt that they would succeed in it. The Swiss may contact local authorities here, but why would Finnish lawyers spend their time on such things? There's not very big amounts of money moving around in the discography of GÄA.

You said you have read somewhere that information. What was the magazine? I hope you don't feel offended, if I don't buy this thing very easily. It's possible I'm wrong, but I just don't believe it until I see it with my own eyes. <- stupid, stuborn finnish mentality

Besides, I think there are lots of more disturbing thing around throubling me, than suspected lawsuit from a foreing (non-EU) bureau. My life is not very dependant on any P2P server, as I collect my music on vinyls, and not mp3s. And I don't believe, anything I would ever be even interested to check out through P2P servers, would be any interest of RIAA. Let's not get hysterical, but wacth calmly how these issues escalate.

^ It's all over the news in Germany. This is the company:

http://www.logistepag.com/ - http://www.logistepag.com/

BTW: There are no lawyers involved. They contact the legal authorities which then write you a letter informing you that you've been caught offering a file. You then can pay a fine or risk a trial. No matter what you do, the legal authorities give your address to the rights holders, which then charge you another amount of money for their expenses.

In the article it said that for offering a PC game which normally costs 50€, one has to pay a 50€ fine and 150€ compensation to the rights holders.

Great business concept!

^ It's not anywhere in Finnish news. There's always lawyers involved in sues. The personell of Logistepaq do not control legal authorities of any country, it's up to them to respond to their silly notes. Do you realize, that they truly aren't obligated to do so? They simply cannot forced to respond at any kind of pleas.

This doesn't convince me still, forgive me.

This thing sounds as a news which would interest and scare people, so I wouldn't wonder that such article is spreaded in media. Selling articles about peoples fears, now that's a great business concept!

Eetu Pellonpää wrote: ^ It's not anywhere in Finnish news. There's always lawyers involved in sues. The personell of Logistepaq do not control legal authorities of any country, it's up to them to respond to their silly notes. Do you realize, that they truly aren't obligated to do so? They simply cannot forced to respond at any kind of pleas.

That's because they're not active in Finnland yet - I never said they are. But you have laws against Filesharing in Finnland, so they can begin what they're doing in Germany anytime.

BTW: If you report a crime in Germany, the legal authorities have to investigate ... they cannot refuse. I'm sure that it's similar in Finnland.

Eetu Pellonpää wrote: This doesn't convince me still, forgive me.

http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/64181 - http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/64181

http://www.n-tv.de/582473.html - http://www.n-tv.de/582473.html

Eetu Pellonpää wrote: This thing sounds as a news which would interest and scare people, so I wouldn't wonder that such article is spreaded in media. Selling articles about peoples fears, now that's a great business concept!

It is real. They already filed 20,000 sues ... supplied as a database table of IP addresses.

FICTION: File sharers are depriving the music labels (not to mention the movie and software cartels) of billions of dollars in lost sales.

FACT: The cartel is reporting substantial drop-offs in sales and much of this is, its owners claim, down to file sharing.

It's eminently debatable whether file sharing has caused the loss of even a single sale. But the labels have cut back significantly on their output in Australia, say new figures from http://p2pnet.net/story/6258 - an Australian expert . Given that it's the case in Oz, one can assume it's also true elsewhere.

There have also been a number of academic and other studies pointing up the fallacy of the cartel assertions.

One of the first to suggest EMI, Universal, Warner and Sony BMG were being a little less than forthright in their 'File sharing is costing us billions in lost sales' declarations came from two respected American scholars.

"According to the RIAA (2002), the number of CD’s shipped in the U.S. fell from 940 million to 800 million - or 15% - between 2000 and 2002 (though shipments continued to rise during the first two years of popular file sharing, 1999-2000)," say http://www.p2pnet.net/zero/FileSharing_March2004.pdf - Felix Oberholzer of the Harvard Business School and http://www.p2pnet.net/zero/FileSharing_March2004.pdf - Koleman Strumpf of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in their The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis.

"The record industry has claimed this decline is due to file sharing."

The two analyzed the direct data of music downloaders over a 17-week period in the fall of 2002, and compared that activity with actual music purchases during that time, coming to the conclusion that spikes in downloading had almost no discernible effect on sales.

Even under the worst-case example, "it would take 5,000 downloads to reduce the sales of an album by one copy," they wrote. "After annualizing, this would imply a yearly sales loss of two million albums, which is virtually rounding error given that 803 million records were sold in 2002. Sales dropped by 139 million albums from 2000 to 2002."

Nor do downloaded mp3 files replace CD buys.

"While downloads occur on a vast scale, most users are likely individuals who would not have bought the album even in the absence of file sharing," stated Oberholzer and Strumpf.

Their studies concentrated on the American experience. But a more recent study by Dr Tatsuo Tanaka of Keio University in Japan, using the now famous Winny p2p application, says there’s, “ http://p2pnet.net/story/4354 - not sufficient evidence that file sharing systems are responsible for the recent decline in CD sales”.

To the contrary, p2p usage helps in the promotion of music by allowing users to experience it before purchase; and, it helps in the discovery of new music by users, says Tanaka in http://www.p2pnet.net/stuff/tanaka.pdf - Does File Sharing Reduce CD Sales ?

"Based on micro data of CD sales and numbers of downloads, we found that there is very little evidence that file sharing reduced music CD sales in Japan. We controlled simultaneous bias between sales and downloads by instrumental variables but did not find correlation between CD sales and numbers of downloads. Although there were large differences in the numbers of downloads among CD titles, these differences did not affect CD sales.

"We also carried out a user survey on file sharing and CD purchases with consideration to the potential bias of respondents trying to understate their illegal copying activity. This survey also showed that file sharing had very limited influence on CD purchases."

Tanaka suggests copyright laws should be relaxed rather than tightened to allow for more positive effects of broadband internet file sharing.

Meanwhile, millions of entertainment industry dollars that should have gone into shareholder dividends are spent on 'reports' meant to counter the papers. But they can be clearly seen for what they are: fruitless attempts to discredit papers which http://p2pnet.net/story/2218 - give the lie to industry claims.

FICTION: File sharers are thieves.

FACT: Put at its simplest, to steal something is to remove it from its original owner without his or her permission, causing deprivation through loss. File sharing means exactly what it says. Sharing. Nothing is stolen and no one is deprived of anything. To the contrary, file sharers are exposed to music they may never have otherwise heard. Mp3s are inferior, compressed copies of original CD tracks meant primarily for portable devices. People who listen to mp3s frequently go out to buy the originals so they can be played on home stereo systems.

Moreover, no money changes hands and no profits are made or lost.

FICTION: Targetting people suspected of file sharing has significantly reduced the number of file sharers in the US and around the world.

FACT: The lawsuits have had, and continue to have, zero impact on the file sharing communities. To the contrary, the number of people logging onto file sharing networks everywhere is steadily increasing.

p2pnet has been collecting data compiled by Big Champagne, the American research company which specializes in gathering data on file sharing.

In August, 2003, in the US, on average, 2,630,960 people were simultaneously logged onto p2p networks at any given time. Globally, the number was approximately 3,847,565.

A year later for the same months, the numbers were 4,549,801 and 6,822,312 respectively.

And for August, 2005, Big Champagne statistics show 6,871,308 people were logged onto the networks at the same time in the US, with 9,620,261 individuals checking in around the world.

FICTION: Entertainment industry lawsuits deter people from sharing files with each other online.

FACT: Every day, hundreds of thousands of people around the world log on for the first time meaning the chance of any one individual becoming one of the RIAA's chosen few becomes exponentially more unlikely.

In his http://www.p2pnet.net/stuff/gieslercollectiverisk.pdf - Theory of Collective Consumer Risk , "Downloaders are generally less likely to expect a stern warning, expensive lawsuit or even criminal prosecution, the more those around them are doing the same," says Canadian marketing expert Dr Markus Giesler, also quoting p2pnet's contention that the odds of ending up as an RIAA target are akin to being struck by lightning.

Or put another way, the risk tied to Internet file-sharing is almost zero despite entertainment industry claims to the contrary, says Geisler, going on: "Downloaders are generally less likely to expect a http://p2pnet.net/story/2055 - stern warning , expensive lawsuit or even criminal prosecution, the more those around them are doing the same."

Slyck is famous for its forums and its statistics. In May this year, "From the last capture of the proportion of networks under the RIAA’s gun in November of 2003, 150 users of FastTrack were sued, compared to 5 Blubster users," said the site’s Tom Mennecke in http://www.slyck.com/news.php?story=769 - RIAA’s Grand Total: 10,037 - What are Your Odds? , continuing:

"Since the RIAA cannot subpoena individuals anymore, we unfortunately cannot provide a more current proportion. However, common knowledge dictates that FastTrack remains a priority, and on November 13 of 2003 it represented ~96% of those being sued."

But, "If we were to eliminate 96% (proportion of FastTrack users) of the 6,523 sued in 2004, the odds of being sued changes dramatically. If we consider only those using a non-FastTrack P2P network, the total number of lawsuits drops to only ~261. In other words, you then have a 1 in 45,977 chance of being sued if you do not use FastTrack. Comparatively, according to the National Safety Council, you have a better chance of being killed in a transportation or non-transportational accident, death from suicide, death from assault or death by legal intervention (such as execution or being shot by a police officer.)"

Say, however, half of those sued in 2004 were using FastTrack, that leaves 3,261 non-FastTrack related lawsuits, says Mennecke. "You would then have a 1 in 3,679 chance of being sued. That still places you above all external cases of mortality (1 in 1,755), but below all transportational accidents (1 in 5,953.) However, you would still have a better chance of being killed in an unintentional accident (1 in 2,698), then being sued by the RIAA.

"Although these numbers are hardly an exact science, they do reflect the odds of being sued are little different than the risks one takes by simply living day-to-day life. But if we were to get real specific, the odds of being sued by the RIAA for non-FastTrack users (1 in 3,679) is still much greater than death by contact with a venomous snake or lizard (1 in 95 million.)”

FICTION: Thousands of Americans have been found guilty of 'file sharing'.

FACT: Not one person has ever been found guilty of file sharing, or of anything else. And that's because until Patricia Santangelo came along, not one person had been willing to risk going up against the labels. This in turn has meant no one has appeared before a judge and no alleged case of 'file sharing' has ever been taken to its conclusion.

Worse, the practice makes a mockery of a corner stone of the American legal system: that people are innocent until they're proven guilty.

However, the cartel and their RIAA and other similar industry owned enforcement organizations continue to issue disingenuous press releases suggesting they've successfully prosecuted thousands of 'criminal, thieving' file sharers.

We could go on because pick virtually any aspect of p2p file sharing in music industry statements, and the odds are far better than even that they'll be distortions, if not outright lies, carefully crafted to give the appearance that the labels are beleaguered corporate citizens doing their honest best to survive in a world where millions upon millions of file sharing thieves get up every morning, bent on robbing the labels of what's rightfully theirs, depriving their contracted artists of their livings and causing terrible hardship to support workers.

The contention is obvious nonsense. Nonetheless, the mainstream media repeat these "facts" as though they're a genuine reflection of what's occurring, and as though they come from credible and reliable sources.

And while the labels and their counterparts in the movie and software industries do their best to imitate King Canute in his attempts to turn back the tide, the p2p networks have become a permanent part of the online scene, solidly locked in.

Peer-to-peer is here to stay and as British ISP network service CacheLogic says in a just-published report, p2p not only represented 60% of Net traffic at the end of 2004, it “outstrips every other communication and distribution protocol and is still growing”.

Moreover, p2p and broadband are mutually compatible forces, each driving the uptake of the other, says the report.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: But you have laws against Filesharing in Finnland, so they can begin what they're doing in Germany anytime.

Do we really?  I didn't know you know finnish laws so well! Congratulations to you! You are truly a devoted man!

Eetu Pellonpää wrote: BTW: If you report a crime in Germany, the legal authorities have to investigate ... they cannot refuse. I'm sure that it's similar in Finnland.

It's a completelly different issue, do Finnish authorities note such silly things as crime, or do they not. Are you one their agents, as you are promoting them and scaring people here with such nonsense? Don't you have anything better to do here as a collaborator, which I noted you are?

 Relax dude, you're taking this way more seriously than I do.

BTW: So you're saying that filesharing is legal in Finnland? If so ... well, good for you.

Interesting stuff indeed.

I was browsing the alt.music.winmx.newsgroup the day WinMX went down (9/20) and found the following exchanges for the question:

Is WinMX pay subscription now?

No WinMx here either, but found http://www.winmx-downloading.net - www.winmx-downloading.net which indicates that winmx is free but you are paying for support and technical help. Hmmmmm.

Jesus H. Christ! They're crawling out of the woodwork today!

...that is a spinoff site someone made up to make money off suckers

...this is not frontcode (owner of WinMX) - it is a scam-site which has existed for a long time.

My teeth are whiter, strange women on the street seem to pay more attention to me, and even my dishes are now sparkling clean without pre-rinsing.

Logos wrote: MikeEnRegalia wrote: BTW: So you're saying that filesharing is legal in Finnland? If so ... well, good for you. It's Finland, by the way.

Of course it is ... sorry. It's "Finnland" in German, and also "Finnish" or "A Finn" ... languages are strange.

Sorry for those posts. I was allready in a bad mood due my painful sickness and other private problems.  Forgive me. I just got a very arrogant expression of you, when you started to tell me how laws actually work here in Finland. I doubt you know very much of our practice of law. I'm not a lawyer either, but my father is, so I know something about some issues I have talked with him about.

Downloading and sharing files are not legal in Finland, but it hasn't been seen as enough important issue to put resources to hunting down kids sharing Britney Spears from the net. I have an understanding, that we have the highest violence rate in Europe when measured to the population rate, so the authorities are not interested to use their small resources to so unimportant issues. Those swiss bastards cannot alter the decisions of our prosecutors in any way. Any documents indicating my actions in the web could be a hoax, so they should come to fetch my computer and check it out for evidence. Now, homesearching warrants are not granted to the authorities, unless the penalty of crime suspected is over six motnhts of jail. You don't get six months of jail from spreading the music on internet, you get it from stabbing people in the street or something like that.

Here's a link which has all finnish laws. It's in finnish, so it's not very valuable to those not speaking finnish though...

http://www.laki24.fi/ - http://www.laki24.fi/

If I should get any note from such company, which I don't find very probably, as I'm not much into filesharing, I would wipe my sh*ty ass on the paper and send it back to them for further examining.

Well. Maybe I poisoned this discussion enough from my part, and it's better for me to stop here.  And once more, sorry if I hurted your feelings.

^ no problem. I just posted the info on Logistep because it's really a groundbreaking new concept. They are doing it in Germany and it looks like it's working. I'm certain that they will expand their service to other countries, and I don't know whether it's possible in Finland - maybe, maybe not.

P E A C E.

P.S.: Who needs filesharing anyway when there's websites like www.last.fm.

MikeEnRegalia wrote: P E A C E.

Amen to that.