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This sort of ad replacement has actually been done plenty of times before, by malware and by shady toolbars. Pretty much no one is going to be okay with this: t

This sort of ad replacement has actually been done plenty of times before, by malware and by shady toolbars. Pretty much no one is going to be okay with this: the music industry and the US government hate the guy's guts; it's directly stealing money from Google; it wants to directly compete with iTunes; it's directly stealing money from every random blogger and press outlet that might cover it; and other companies doing exactly this was responsible for destroying Microsoft Windows' reputation in the eyes of consumers. Oh, and it's a backdoor held by someone considered wildly untrustworthy. So on the list of parties that have a vested interest in seeing it fail, we have: - The music industry - The US government - All ad-supported press outlets and blogs - Microsoft, Apple, and Google - The computer security industry Oh, and it's also probably illegal (under copyright and tortious interference grounds). I think this is really just a signaling ploy; Dotcom wants to be able to say that he tried to come up with a monetization model for the music industry. But to say that this is doomed a fairly significant understatement.

s_henry_paulson 14y ago
You're generalizing too much. To say that noone is going to go for this is absurd. People who pirate songs in large part are clueless. If they download a torrent with an exe in it, they're still going to click on it because they don't know better. If you willingly give the public a chance to replace a small amount of ads for free stuff, they're going to go for it, because they dont care about replacing ads that were already there, and they benefit. It's like if someone plastered over your billboard every other night. Sure there are people that care, but it's not the people driving on the freeway. As far as the legal aspects, no doubt that will be a large discussion. But, is adblock illegal? If this is illegal, should adblock also be illegal? Will this be enforced the same in all countries? It's not going to take much for this service yo take off, and while many projects may come to an unceremonious end, I predict this will be a massive success before it becomes a failure, but we shall see.
- maxmcd 14y ago
  You're talking about the product, jimrandomh is talking about the business/legal environment. He doesn't mention the fact that it wont be appealing to consumers, just that it'll have a handful of very large entities gunning for it's demise.
  - s_henry_paulson 14y ago
    It's not unreasonable to think that MegaBox was one of the reasons behind the raid. After all, MegaBox was almost complete when it happened, and we now know that the FBI had been monitoring Megaupload for 4-5 years. If they had that much time to gather evidence of wrongdoing, yet fuck up their execution so badly, it leads one to believe that the operation was rushed, perhaps by some influential people "gunning for its demise" Now, if that were really the case, it would be because they actually fear the product's release, and they would have to feel that the existing legal framework wouldn't be enough to stop it.
    - res0nat0r 14y ago
      I highly doubt much of anything is going to come of this. The US Gov't was that afraid of MegaBox to rush a raid on Dotcom? Not likely IMO. Grooveshark hasn't been paying artists for a long time and isn't enough of a threat to raid as of today. Most likely more BS self promotion from the Head BS'er.
      - lowboy 14y ago
        The US Gov't as an entity isn't afraid. But lobbyists and other politicians might be afraid of not being able to buy that second house if they don't act in the interests of the RIAA/etc. edit On the surface this sounds like the stuff of tinfoil hats, but lobbyists do influence politics. A well-placed word with someone on high could have tipped the action.
jauer 14y ago
This has been done wholesale by ISPs for several years.

s_henry_paulson 14y ago

You're generalizing too much. To say that noone is going to go for this is absurd. People who pirate songs in large part are clueless. If they download a torrent with an exe in it, they're still going to click on it because they don't know better. If you willingly give the public a chance to replace a small amount of ads for free stuff, they're going to go for it, because they dont care about replacing ads that were already there, and they benefit. It's like if someone plastered over your billboard every other night. Sure there are people that care, but it's not the people driving on the freeway. As far as the legal aspects, no doubt that will be a large discussion. But, is adblock illegal? If this is illegal, should adblock also be illegal? Will this be enforced the same in all countries? It's not going to take much for this service yo take off, and while many projects may come to an unceremonious end, I predict this will be a massive success before it becomes a failure, but we shall see.

maxmcd 14y ago
You're talking about the product, jimrandomh is talking about the business/legal environment. He doesn't mention the fact that it wont be appealing to consumers, just that it'll have a handful of very large entities gunning for it's demise.
- s_henry_paulson 14y ago
  It's not unreasonable to think that MegaBox was one of the reasons behind the raid. After all, MegaBox was almost complete when it happened, and we now know that the FBI had been monitoring Megaupload for 4-5 years. If they had that much time to gather evidence of wrongdoing, yet fuck up their execution so badly, it leads one to believe that the operation was rushed, perhaps by some influential people "gunning for its demise" Now, if that were really the case, it would be because they actually fear the product's release, and they would have to feel that the existing legal framework wouldn't be enough to stop it.
  - res0nat0r 14y ago
    I highly doubt much of anything is going to come of this. The US Gov't was that afraid of MegaBox to rush a raid on Dotcom? Not likely IMO. Grooveshark hasn't been paying artists for a long time and isn't enough of a threat to raid as of today. Most likely more BS self promotion from the Head BS'er.
    - lowboy 14y ago
      The US Gov't as an entity isn't afraid. But lobbyists and other politicians might be afraid of not being able to buy that second house if they don't act in the interests of the RIAA/etc. edit On the surface this sounds like the stuff of tinfoil hats, but lobbyists do influence politics. A well-placed word with someone on high could have tipped the action.

jauer 14y ago

This has been done wholesale by ISPs for several years.