[Nettime-bold] Re: RHIZOME_RAW: Really Viral Marketing

[John Klima <klima {AT} echonyc.com>]

this is an intriguing idea, and i'm gonna play devil's advocate and not
reject the notion off hand.  you rightfully say that our machines are
our souls, but personally i own more than one (soul?).  if say, i made
one of my old (as in a year) clunkers just a net media machine, what do
i care if some spare cycles are used for a render farm, as long as my
tunes don't get interupted, this could actually be a really "sound"
idea. i have any number of old machines that are more than capable of
playing mp3's, if offering my spare cpu cycles, on a machine i only use
for media playback, solves the whole payment problem, i'm down with it.

j



"Christopher Fahey [askrom]" wrote:
> 
> This is a fascinating article about the new owner of Kazaa, Nikki
> Hemming, who has turned the notorious file-sharing application into what
> could be a very disturbing yet influential chapter in the history of
> file-sharing and, hence, copyright law. She's a daring businessperson,
> I'll give her that:
>   http://news.com.com/2100-1023-890197.html
> 
> She seems to be quietly gearing up her company for a long legal battle.
> She also seems to have a "get rich while you can" scheme just in case it
> all fails:
>   http://news.com.com/2100-1023-873181.html
> 
> This article says that when you install Kazaa you also install a little
> hidden app called "Altnet" that allows the app's maker (Brilliant
> Digital) to use your computer to do all kinds of stuff at any time, in
> theory without asking you. They claim they would never do it, but they
> acknowledge that they could. If you don't figure out how to uninstall it
> after installing Kazaa, the app just sits there on your machine like
> little secret back door. They could use your PC as a 'network farm' for
> complex 3D animation rendering. They could tell your machine to play you
> a slideshow of targeted ads. They could monitor your surfing activities.
> I think it is specifically designed to install other apps on your
> computer. They have not yet "turned it on", however.
> 
> This got me thinking that Kazaa probably got paid a lot of money to put
> this app into their installation package. Kazaa's biggest asset was
> their ability to sell (to business partners) space in the Kazaa
> installation package to third parties, a common practice among popular
> shareware apps. Unlike other businesses who do this, however, Brilliant
> Digital's product is able to, in turn, re-sell their newly-purchased
> hidden-installation channel to their own customers.
> 
> Both Kazaa and Brilliant offer their business partners/customers the
> opportunity to secretly "have their way" with the end user. What we get
> is a file sharing app, and in return they get the ability to market to
> us, use our CPU cycles, spy on us, or otherwise fuck us. Kazaa is a
> primary provider and Brilliant is a kind of "re-seller" of what might be
> called of "Pay Up The Ass" (or as they say in Spanish, "PUTA") marketing
> channels.
> 
> This gets more complex when you remember (from the first article) that
> Brilliant was one of of Nikki Hemming's business associates even before
> she bought Kazaa.
> 
> It is my theory that these people have come up with what might be an
> early prototype for the answer to the RIAA's prayers: turn the
> predominant distribution channel for online file sharing into something
> that has a way to extract some kind of payment from the end users, even
> if it's not money. In other words, make people pay for music by
> controlling the most popular way of getting to the music. PUTA may be
> the currency that we, as consumers, use to 'purchase' media when it is
> possible to get it for free - we use our souls instead of our money to
> buy digital media. By redefining the word "free" and by gaining control
> over the predominant distribution channels in file sharing, somebody
> (Kazaa? RIAA?) might achieve the goal of actually making people "pay"
> for what would be traditionally "pirated" content.
> 
> We put our personal time and the resources of our own computers (which
> are in 2002 effectively extensions of our own bodies, symbiotically
> indespensible) up as payment for media. Kazaa and Brilliant are selling
> us media which essentially comes with a built-in virus, and we accept it
> just like we've always accepted advertising on everything else we own
> and use. It's a brave new world.
> 
> It may well be doomed to fail, however, since somebody is always going
> to figure out a way to piggyback onto the Kazaa network and pirate the
> files, anyway.
> 
> -Cf
> 
> [christopher eli fahey]
> art: http://www.graphpaper.com
> sci: http://www.askrom.com
> biz: http://www.behaviordesign.com
> 
> + "soon, i will rise from the dead" viewerat
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