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I had lunch recently with a major record label executive, and
we discussed April 25th, 2003 - the day the music industry's worst
nightmare came true. A Federal court ruling found that peer-to-peer
file sharing (P2P)
companies are "not significantly different from companies that
sell home video recorders." Judge Stephen Wilson was
equating P2P with the landmark Betamax case, and in so doing effectively
legalized file-sharing, or at least the companies that produce the
software. (Recently a Dutch court came to a similar conclusion.) My
lunch partner paused between bites of pasta when I asked him
about it. He said that he held out a sliver of hope of overturning it on
appeal, but if that didn't succeed, then the music industry would be resigned
to living with P2P and it would fundamentally change their business.
As painful as it may be to acknowledge for digital-content-based
businesses - P2P is here to stay. Ultimately, the music industry will
have to adapt
their business to leverage P2P, as will the movie business and my own
industry, the software business. Companies must alter
their strategies to swim with the tide rather than waste energy in a
futile attempt to halt it. Yes, end-user lawsuits may temporarily slow
adoption, but the next
generation of P2P software will simply make it difficult or impossible
to track individual users.
Lindows.com is
going to start swimming with the P2P tide by officially making some of
our software available on P2P systems. We are going to make available
LindowsLive!, the latest version of our popular LindowsOS software that
runs
entirely from a CD, on several of the most popular file sharing
networks. (LindowsLive! is a great way for people to try out Linux on
any
computer without doing an install.) Previously, we have sold this
product for $29.95. Starting today, we are making it available
officially and legal for free via P2P. No, we haven't lost our minds.
What we're doing is figuring out how we can take advantage of P2P to
advance our own business.
Today, P2P systems have two major benefits - a large number of users and
an ultra-low cost way to deliver files. In 2004, Lindows.com
will spend
well over $100,000 in bandwidth charges for delivery of CD images of
our software
called "ISOs" (which people can use to construct an installation CD for
LindowsOS). By allowing people to download LindowsLive from P2P networks
instead from our servers, we hope to reduce those costs. At the same
time, we'll be
exposing millions of users on file-sharing networks to LindowsOS all at
a minimal cost. Hopefully, those users will purchase other products and
services from Lindows.com, such as CNR (click and run), web-filtering,
virus software or one of the many Click-N-Buy (CNB) games or programs.
P2P systems continue to make advancements in ease-of-use, and
performance and there are several popular P2P programs available via
CNR for LindowsOS users. LimeWire is an easy-to-use program to search
the "gnutella" network for many different types of files. Degreez is a
great program for using "BitTorrent" to download large files, and is
the newest file-sharing system in CNR.
No matter which program you use, next time do a
search for "LindowsLive" and you'll see the power of P2P helping build
Lindows.com.
-- MichaelThe Michael's Minute Meter
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