SOULSEEK TO BE BANNED

Soulseek is the only reason I have a computer and broadband connection.

Both AG and Napster had a central organisation with servers so it was easy to shut them down.

So does Sl5k :-(

There are plans to re-intoduce separate servers I believe, which was done in the early days, but at the moment Sl5k is centralised

oop gotta go the Wallet Inspector has arrived

As for the network, there is a central server that handles logins and such, but as opposed to Napster, AudioGalaxy, et al. it does not handle searching, thats done in a distributed fashion. I'm not sure how this effects all the legal crap, but I thought it was worth a mention.

Really when it comes down to it, the thing that makes slsk so great has little to do with how it's built and a lot to do with the users. Somehow it became the music-geek filesharing service. There are a ton of people with well organized collections of music-geek music. Try and find Neu! 2 on something like Kazaa or whatever. On slsk you'll get a crapload of results mostly organized so that the results are in folders called something like "\Music\Neu!\Neu 2" and the files will all be either well tagged or well named. Then people right click, hit "download folder" and they've got the whole album, ripped and encoded by the same person so it doesn't suddenly get LOUD and quiet.

Oh and steve, it doesn't open all those files. The client sequentially opens the files in your shares when it first starts up to figure out bitrate, etc and caches that data. From then on out, it only has the files open that its reading (people are downloading), writing (you are downloading), and probably a few now and then for configuration, userlist, etc.

Search results are probably poorer because the network kind of "boomed" over the past year, and it's not really designed to handle so many people (well). So instead of having a bunch of music-geeks near you (network-wise), you have more 14 year old girls taking up those spaces. Your search has to move farther across the graph to get the same results. And the further out the queries go, the less likely they are to get back to you. For example, about 1/4-1/8 of all people who download from me now have nothing shared or only a handful of random assorted files shared, whereas it was like 1/25 or something like that back in the summer.

God I'm bored and drank too much coffee this morning. I wrote a freaking manual here.

assholes..

i mean come on, people. have some f'in restraint.

Though I would miss my little chats with "poopenthusiast" and "TouchMyPussy101".

The indie record store where I got the Neu! record (DC CD) has since gone out of business, sadly.

Maybe you shouldn't be stealing candy bars, Jack.

What in the name of god is this supposed to be? A joke?

http://www.unc.edu/~cigar/papers/FileSharing_March2004.pdf

anecdotally i believe cost is in part becoming more and more of an issue.

have you any statistical evidence of that?

Analogue copies of Candy Bars, Classic or Sucky? -- mark grout (mark.grou...), March 30th, 2004 11:57 AM.

This must be an ILM all time great for me so far.

And I have been able to find every single thing I want with kazaa lite anyway. -- David Allen (Davidalle...), June 10th, 2004 3:36 AM.

If only...

i dont pay shit and im on dial up and its the best thing ever fuck you haterz -- chaki_burger (chaki_mc_chak...), June 10th, 2004 4:05 AM.

This is BRILLIANT. No, really. This is about as punk rock as it gets.
I love it.

how long has this been goin on?... as the song says. -- piscesboy (piscesxx...), September 12th, 2004 2:23 PM.

Wait don't tell me who does that song. Wait wait DON't fucking TELL ME! Why is my brain saying Hall & Oates? Don't tell me!!! I'll be awake, tossing and turning trying to figure out who does this for the next three hours.

paying for free music isn't going to happen.

I'm reminded of a statement I made in trigonometry class in high school that the teacher took to be far more profound than I had meant it. Is this the verbal version of M.C. Escher or something? It's an exercise in paradox, and I admire it.

and YES, P2P affects sales too - i'd be crazy to claim it didn't - but it wasn't the primary factor if you looked at a lot of the numbers. it does make better headlines, though.

SOULSEEK TO BE SUED

Last week we reported that French record labels were going after four file-sharing applications, including Limewire and the BitTorrent client Vuze. Now, just days later, two other French organizations are to continue this crackdown and sue Soulseek.

SACEM, the French association for music producers and SCPP, which represents record labels including Universal, EMI, BMG, Warner have filed a complaint against the filesharing application.

The industry bodies argue that Soulseek, an application created by former Napster programmer Nir Arbel, is designed to permit unauthorized access to copyrighted works. According to a French law adopted in 2006, distributing such software is an offense that can lead to a 3 year jail sentence, as well as a fine up to 300,000 euros.

While Soulseek can be used to share any type of file, it is almost exclusively used to share music. Soulseek has a multitude of sub-communities, each dedicated to their chosen musical genres. The members can be incredibly passionate and many of them are experts in their field. Although mainstream music is available, the majority of the files shared on the network are underground independent music.

On the Soulseek website, it is clearly stated that the intention of their application is not to infringe copyright. Instead, it aims “to help unsigned and/or independent artists find a place in the ever-growing music industry, in a place where discussion and the creation of music can take place.”

Similar to other music sharing communities such as the BitTorrent sites What.cd and Waffles.fm, many members are artists themselves, who share their music freely. True to this spirit, members of the Soulseek community founded Soulseek Records (or SLSK Records), a non-profit netlabel where artists publish their music for free, under a Creative Commons license.

Instead of supporting this creative platform, the French music industry continues its witch-hunt, effectively killing their own business. If they are successful, this case, or the lawsuits against the other four p2p clients, will undoubtedly impact other filesharing applications.

FREEDOMSEEK

can i get a soulseek invite

i've never used s1sk, should I be?

do u want an invite

sure!

what do you need

a) requested username
b) first name (no surnames)
c) age
d) gender
e) geographic location

1) Name three shared albums (+192kbps only) that others have successfully downloaded from you in the past week

2) What is rockism? (answer in paragraph format, eight sentence minimum)

3) Post a link to your favorite picture of Cat Power

4) Which artist is better, Sufjan Stevens or Deerhoof? Why? (answer in paragraph format, eight sentence minimum)

5) How many invites do you require?

see if i wasnt such a s1sk nub i'd be able to tell if that was serious or not

kells i will invite unto u

jergs <3 kells

kells do u have acapellas to share? looking to mash up ignition with a certain pop hit every1 know:)

nope no acapellas :(

WHY DO THE FRENCH HATE OUR FREEDOMS?

lol

http://www.tothesource.org/3_12_2003/freedom_fries.gif

mmmm Freedom Fish
http://www.thecandybaron.com/pics/7001.jpg

I'll just assume all slsk rooms have been renamed into things like "Freedom Dance Music," then.

Freedom House should be a genre

Check Allmusic or PFM, it probably is.

"Blossoming from the ashes of communism and the fall of the Berlin Wall, Freedom House's brief reign as a genre was crushed by the pessimism and angst that the Grunge Era would soon usher in..."

slsk has been one of the best things that has ever happened to the net.

Yeah all that sharing "underground independent music" has certainly "helped unsigned and/or independent artists find a place in the ever-growing music industry, in a place where discussion and the creation of music can take place", amirite.

wtf, no, we just like to steal music from major labels

homo

I'm confused. I thought neither Nir Arbel or s1sk's servers were in France. What next? Peru sues Pirate Bay?

so less frenchies on soulseek? cool :) :) :)

Less Magma and Plastic Bertrand tho'

Bertrand was Belgian you racist git.

My apologies to the Belgian nation and all that sail in her.

banned? where's the source of this news?

: (

banned? where's the source of this news?

See my link in the thread revival post. No banning yet, but slsk was just sued.

Bit more about the case here...

http://forums.slsknet.org/ipb/index.php?showtopic=22595&pid=256548&st=0&#entry256548

noooooooo. if slsk goes, then that's it.

wtf, take some acting lessons, or learn how to use the internet.

Will they bother to ban slrsk while they're at it? Us mac users may be able to weather this storm.

huh? that's just a different client, brainiac. same servers.

OK I did not know that, genius. If you're going to zing, plz be more funny.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/8/10589830_3f332dd78e.jpg?v=0

The fact that slsk has lasted even this long is a complete fucking miracle.

major OTM