P2P On The Mac: It’s Not All Bad

Downloading files off the Internet is in it�s self not illegal; let�s get that out of the way first. But I would forgive anybody in thinking that it could be, because there is more to it than meets the eye. In fact having a copy of a file even if it�s a MP3 file, taken from your own CD is not illegal. See it as a way of making a backup. With a few notable exceptions to the rule this applies to many countries such as the US, France and Germany. Never the less, the RIAA has gone all out to get every American man woman and child. You�re bad and up to no good they cry. The rest of the world looks on in astonishment.

So what did people do to deserve this severe treatment? It�s all in how you obtain or pass on copies of �copyrighted� material that is not yours. It�s tricky for the RIAA to know and to prove where copied material comes from and whose copy it is but they can trace how it�s passed on. �Sharing� copyrighted material with others over the Internet is illegal, period. And Big Brother could be watching you because Peer-to-Peer (P2P) programs let them. Not to worry, the rest of the world is happy to share their files because Big Brother can�t tell the world what to do.

In the past we downloaded whatever we liked by using programs like Hotline and later Carracho. And with the advent of P2P clients like Mactella and Limewire there was no stopping this madness. P2P clients seem to have become more popular than the likes of Carracho who allows users to �backup� their files online. And the one that started it all this shenanigans was Napster. They had such a good way of linking all their users computers together that it became a chinch to download any music file you could think of. Harddrive producers must have wet their pants with joy, because downloaders needed gigabytes of storage to satisfy our newly found download obsession. The music industry panicked by killing off Napster but failed to stop or slow down the illegal downloading of copyrighted material. The current RIAA campaign is, in my view, doomed to a similar fate.

Software developers are also, quite rightly, unimpressed by the RIAA�s efforts and are racing to help us gorge on the downloading feast. There is at last, as with Instant messaging, now a plethora of P2P clients for the Mac. With many protocols to chose from: OpenNAP (Napster / 2get / XNap), Drumbeat, Gnutella (Phex / Limewire / Acquisition), OpenFT (Poisoned) and last but not least FastTrack (KaZaA). And lets not forget alternatives like Bitorrent. The KaZaA client is sadly PC only and FastTrack is by far the largest P2P network. If someone can store it on a harddisk then you can find it from anywhere with KaZaA, it�s that ubiquitous. Although there are now claims that this is no longer true.
So are Apple users left in the cold? No not anymore, Poisoned, a multiprotocol P2P client, comes the rescue. It can handle not only the FastTrack protocol but also Gnutella OpenNAP Giftd and the new OpenFT protocols. It is now considered to be a contender to become one of the best P2P clients for the Mac, if it isn’t already.

Steve Jobs says he�s going to compete with the people�s favourite illegal pastime. Well good luck to ya Steve, you brave fellow. There is definitely a market for legal downloading but once free downloading became known to the public at large there was no eradicating it. Apple will have to share the downloading market, or worse, Apple may actually be creating a completely new market. Time will tell. Due to the poor quality of most of the files found through PSP clients iTMS and others will continue to gain ground on illegal downloading. But having to pay for downloading will ensure that Apple and the merry few will only play a bit-part in the downloading bonanza.

The Internet has always followed the needs and wants of the users. Big business has no choice but to deal with it, and needn�t fight a battle that it has already lost.