Skypecasting - P2P File Sharing

shashark writes "Technologically savvy users are merging these technologies to "Skypecast", using Skype's service to distribute recordings across the internet for free. This allows expert users to run their own mini-radio stations, which can be accessed by any Skype user. Skype does not actively support these uses, but encourages its users to find new applications for their service. Other possibilities discussed by Skypecasters at Unbound Spiral or Moodle are to turn an MP3 player into a radio station for any of Skype's 29 million registered users to dial up using their Skype line. Instructions also are available on how to record a personal soap opera and use Skype to distribute it en masse. Even more ominously, some Skypecasters record Skype calls and post them on the Internet."

Wiretapping

[YrWrstNtmr]

Even more ominously, some Skypecasters record Skype calls and post them on the Internet.

Wonder if the various wiretapping rules will eventually come into play. And if not, why not?

RIAA and the options left --

[shashark]

Skype calls are encrypted end-end. Even if RIAA gets the wiretapping rights to see if VoIP calls are really U2 songs, it'll be hard for them to snoop in. And skype is just a beginning.
With ever increasing options of sharing digital media, RIAA really has only two options left-
* Get the govt to ban *any* kind of peer-peer activity. Might be a possibilty, esp given those money bags involved. Don't underestimate your govt. yet.
* Embrace the change. Move out of media-brokerage business and let the artists provide their creations on whatever media they choose. Change Happens.
--
All your music are belong to us.

Indie potential?

[Travelsonic]

"Technologically savvy users are merging these technologies to "Skypecast", using Skype's service to distribute recordings across the internet for free. This allows expert users to run their own mini-radio stations, which can be accessed by any Skype user.

Does anybody think that this has potential for indie artists promoting their music through this?

Things that make you go Hmmmm

[John Seminal]

Motorola is developing cellphones capable of making calls via Wi-Fi networks. They have plans to add internet telephony software via a partnership with Skype. With these phones, Skype customers can call each other at no cost (for most cases). This causes a great concern to the cell phone industry because the calls would now be diverted from the cellular networks hence affecting usage income.

Anything that threatens the big Telcom companies will get shut down by government. The companies will find some excuse, they can be used by terrorists, they will collapse an industry, they will cook your brians. The telcom companies have enough lawyers and lobbyists to thing of something.

I just hope they don't kill this technology because they use the argumet "It is for P2P and illegal file sharing".

I wonder how this will all work. It sounds promising. But if someone has an open wi-fi port, say near a university, how much bandwith will 10 people take up making phone calls? 100 people?

Spypimps

[Doc Ruby]

Why did shashark [slashdot.org] ebmed the links to Unbound Spiral [henshall.com] and Moodle [moodle.org] (defanged here) in dw.com.com SPYWARE [iss.net] links? Is this the sleaziest submission scam yet, which actually forces us to install spyware to follow a frontpage Slashdot link? Are all those jokes about soulsucking NYT registrations really true about shashark? This should be the abuse that finally forces Slashdot editors to check the links on submissions.

"dw.com.com is advertising-oriented spyware (adware) that downloads and displays new advertisements in a popup window while a user is browsing the Web. dw.com.com is difficult to remove, as it does not provide an uninstaller."

-1, Completely uninformed

[Sanity]

But skype is p2p, so that instead of you streaming directly to your audience, listeners may stream from you AND some other listeners, obviously minimizing the bandwidth required of the originator.

I know how Skype works, and it does not do this. It may be P2P in the way that it finds when users are online, but conference calls are one-to-many, just like Icecast. This is why, last time I checked, Skype must limit conference calls to at most 4 participants.

PeerCast [peercast.org] does try to do what you describe, but last time I checked it didn't do a very good job of it.

Re:Blame Game.

[assassinator42]

What recording laws apply to talking on skype? Federally, only one person needs to be informed of the recording. So does that law apply to state-to-state calls? What if I skype someone else in Michigan? Would I have to inform them before recording? I would normally, so I think I would have to.

Re:Blame Game.

[macguys]

I don't think that it's "omnious" to record Skype calls. I use Skype in the production of my daily Mac OS podcast for interviews, announcements, and listener comments. My recordings are full disclosure prior to the event.

Re:RIAA and the options left --

[acb]

There is a lot of pressure to "update" the IPv6 specification to establish a stratified internet of servers (which could be licensed and regulated) and clients (which would have low upstream bandwidth and be unable to act as servers), in the interest of protecting the content industry's business models.

Re:RIAA and the options left --

[grazzy]

Also, how long do you think it will be before bootleg concert recordings make the P2P rounds?

What am I missing here, they already are? By a very small fraction of really devoted fans that goes to their concerts too. Because they love music and are fans all the way.

Someone fanatic about a group enough to listen to a bootleg would surely own all the groups released material.

And do you know what, I have yet to see ANY britney spears or christina aguilera bootleg shared...

Re:RIAA and the options left --

[arodland]

No, some people (who, by the way, work for Skype) told you that Skype conversations are encrypted end-to-end. But because the source isn't available, and the Skype developers believe that obscurity is the best security, you have no way of knowing that. For all anyone knows, it could be that there's no real encryption at all, but that the data is just whitened by a PRNG so it looks encrypted. It could be that there is real crypto going on, but the key-exchange is boobytrapped so that Skype and/or the appropriate TLAs have snooping power. It could be that any one of a number of flaws makes what was intended to be an effective algorithm vulnerable. We don't know any of these things, but the fact that the people who wrote the encryption software in the first place don't trust it to remain unbroken in the face of public scrutiny means that you shouldn't trust it either.

Legal status of internet radio?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does anyone know how legitimate internet radio in North America really is?

Radio stations pay a fee to broadcast music. The companies that broadcast the music you hear in stores pay the same fee. Churches pay a fee so that people can play and sing music. What makes internet radio different? There is an established system where you must pay to broadcast other people's music in public.

I'll probably get modded as a troll but it is a serious question.

Re:They already have wiretapping rights

[jonbryce]

VOIP will help P2P because VOIP programs such as Skype support conference calls.

You have a conference call where everyone listens into some song being played and they make their own recording of it.

OT: Skype-based Ham Transceiver / Shortwave Radio

[ivi]

Australia has had a Shortwave Receiver
(for verifyably licensed Radio Amateurs,
it's also a remotely controlled HF/VHF/UHF
transceiver) based on Skype for yonks!

(Make a Skype call to it to listen...
access a web page to control the radio
and (if licensed) transmit. A bit like
the receive-only JavaRadio (Javeradio?
these days...?)

I guess this is a bit different, since
the radio-based Skype applications are
Real Time, not recorded.