Michael Rogers wrote: > David Barrett wrote: >> The tipping needn't be secret or decentralized; it can happen totally in >> the clear using a standard, centralized, completely legal and legit web >> service. There's no reason to decentralize this part. > > Nevertheless, it could be tricky to persuade users to type their credit > card details into an app associated with a taboo word like P2P.
Well there would be two apps. The first is a totally open, honest, above-board, commercial, professional app that assembles great radio stations out of your local library of content. Let's call this the "Freedora" -- it creates a free, Pandora-like playback experience from your personal library. "Freedora" would have centralized recommendation engine, user accounts, comment boards, social features, etc. There's nothing the least bit sketchy about this app; it's a totally legitimate commercial enterprise. All it does is look at your hard drive, figure out what songs you already have, and offer a superior playback interface for them. It doesn't have any P2P or downloading built in at all. Additionally, this app offers an API where you can do all sorts of things -- remote control playback, rate songs, etc. One of those API functions is "give me a list of songs I don't have that I might like". The second app is very basic, quiet, largely featureless. It runs in the background. We'll call this the "Background Download Engine (BDE)". All the BDE does is download files on command. It doesn't know anything about the files it downloads, it just gets them and stores them on disk. When you first install and run BDE, it just sits there and does nothing. However, BDE is pre-configured to detect if you're also running Freedora. And if you are, it'll regularly poll the Freedora API to figure out "What files does Freedora want?" And then it goes and downloads them, and stores them on disk in a place Freedora can find. Freedora works perfectly fine without BDE. After all, lots of people have huge content libraries totally legally purchased / ripped from their own CDs. This is a superior interface to explore your library, without dishonesty, illegal activity, or concern. I imagine most Freedora users would use it in this totally legitimate, intended way. However, some users will also install the BDE. That's their choice, based on their assessment of the legal requirements of their region. And when they do, BDE downloads a steady stream of music that Freedora recommends, and Freedora happily sucks it up just as if you went out and purchased the MP3 directly. There's nothing remotely illegal or untoward about Freedora. Indeed, it could probably make a ton of money by just tapping into Amazon MP3 and having a setting of "Buy any song that you are *really* confident I'll like, up to a maximum budget of $X/day". This lets users specify exactly how much they're willing to spend on new music, and Freedora will take care of the rest. BDE is just an optional extension used by people who feel comfortable with it. -david _______________________________________________ p2p-hackers mailing list [email protected] http://lists.zooko.com/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers
