Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

News for nerds, stuff that matters

Slashdot Log In

Log In

Create Account  |  Retrieve Password

P2P Streaming Radio

Posted by michael on Sun Jun 30, 2002 02:34 AM
from the bright-ideas dept.
sonicsft writes "RIAA, CARP, and streaming internet radio, oh my. Well these guys may have found a solution. With the tag line, pirate radio for the digital age, they've released a peer to peer streaming radio solution and claim that it is untracable/closable by the RIAA."
+ -
story
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.
  • how about source ? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mAIsE (548) on Sunday June 30 2002, @02:38AM (#3794718) Homepage
    if you really want to set it free GPL it
  • Careful (Score:3, Interesting)

    by undeg chwech (589211) on Sunday June 30 2002, @02:40AM (#3794724) Homepage
    The developer should be careful

    "There's no listener count yet. To be added soon, along with stats to give some idea about the 'shape' of the data tree. "

    It should be kept 100% anonymous, if there's a hint that the data is available then "they" will go after it ... like the PVR which had unsed tracking software built in that the courts demanded was turned on.
  • by JoeShmoe (90109) <askjoeshmoe@hotmail.com> on Sunday June 30 2002, @02:43AM (#3794736)
    Remember that swarmcast technology that was on Slashdot a while ago? Basically everyone on Slashdot tried downloading some 350MB file of audio clips from a conference and everyone who was downloading was uploading at the same time and so the end result was that the more people who downloaded, the faster the downloads went for everyone.

    I'm guessing this is sort of the same kind of deal? How long until we modifies this to share "recipies"? ;)

    - JoeShmoe

    .
  • Just like any sort of encryption scheme or digital rights system, there's always a vulnerability, the human factor.

    Somehow, someone will figure out some sort of system or program to trace the stream to it's origin. They'd like to think it's secure/untraceable, but someone will find a way around it.
  • by sterno (16320) on Sunday June 30 2002, @02:46AM (#3794745) Homepage
    The fact that this guy's website if expressly saying he's doing this to bypass carp is going to screw him in the long run. If he got taken to court and his most obvious defense would be to say that this was created to help independent artists broadcast their music. Then the judge will look at the pages from his website and that defense will be dead right away.

    If you're going to try to take on the system, try to do it in an intelligent manner.
    • I thought that first, but on a second reading it doesn't seem so obvious. I don't think it's unreasonable to argue that he's just annoyed at so many music streaming and trading services having been closed down. For all we know, he just wants something to trade non-corporate music.

      From what he's said, he could easily just want a system for streaming fully legitimate mp3's, and simply be expressing disgust that the services that used to provide legal music are being shut down by bullies.

      Stating that it's "enough to play your tunes to your mates" would also have to count in his favour.

      • That is true, however, if they can show his intent was to produce something to circumvent a law... which is what the original poster is talking about, he'll have a hard time making a case for himself.

        It's like if The CSS case.. they claimed they wanted to write a dvd player. Okay, they lost the case anyway, but if their website had said "Cool! Now we can copy all our DVDs and fuck and ignore the stupid RIAA morons." it would have been even harder to try to claim, right?
  • Hmmm (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Auckerman (223266) on Sunday June 30 2002, @02:49AM (#3794753)
    Windows Only + No source + one guy = Killable by RIAA.

    I'm not impressed.
    • Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 30 2002, @03:04AM (#3794784)
      Windows Only + No source + one guy = Killable by RIAA.

      Do you realize that that description fits Gnutella's initial release almost perfectly? Aside from Gnutella being originally a Nullsoft "product" of sorts, there's really no difference in circumstances.

      I'm not saying it will necessarily be a success, but your criteria for not being impressed don't impress me.
      • Mod parent up, he has an excellent point.

        The source may not be free, but the concept is, and even if it gets shut down, it will be re-engineered by someone else.

        Same as gnutella which was also "shut down" by AOL/Time-Warner after they realized what it was doing.
    • Re:Hmmm (Score:2, Interesting)

      True, but thankfully his meme will live on.

      It shouldn't take too long before people implement their own on other p2p platforms, such as PeerMetrics [peermetrics.com] or JXTA [jxta.org]. Relying on shoutcast is definitely a weak element in the solution. Sharing of connected peers shouldn't be transparent, too, as it leads to discovery of the stream source (the unreferenced node).

      <rant>Speaking of which, do people know of other good p2p platforms out there for implementing stuff like this? This idea and other good ones would have come sooner if only there were more good, generic p2p vectors. As is, everyone home-rolls their p2p apps, still, thus requiring different channels of distribution, different standards, yada yada. We need a platform that's like apache with mods.</rant>

    • It's real easy to piss on other's efforts isn't it? If this guy is serious, if his software works, when the RIAA comes after him, how long do you think it will be before he opens it up?

      There's been a real trend of late to mod trash talk up as Insightful.
  • I downloaded it, and noticed that the Streamer app would crash often when I loaded the "Stations" list. Looking at the log window, it seems that there have been stations set up with the intent of crashing the client.

    From what I've seen, this has potential. It's simply too buggy to be useful at the moment, though. It'd be nice if it was open-source, too. This guy is just setting himself up to be sued by the RIAA if this takes off...

  • This doesn't avoid "broadcasting" over the internet at all.
    Think about it, under this system, EVERYONE is broadcasting/webcasting and each USER would be required to pay the RIAA fee.

    This might be a decent system to spread the pain, however. If you only had to pay $.14/hour to listen to netradio (assuming you passed to two other people), that could be a very affordable rate.
    200 people could each afford to pay when they listen, rather than one station paying for everyone.

    Don't bill it as a circumvention device, bill it as a load-balancer for the internet.

    Colin
    • It also spreads the pain to the point where if the RIAA wants to sue then it is taking on its customers directly. It takes us another step towards the RIAA pissing off too many people, just enough so that the backlash starts in a big way. Connect a system like this with a donation network, a PAC, a legal defense fund, and more forms of action/advocacy... you might start to see congress understanding common sense just a bit more (or at least pretending to under threat of losing campaign dollars and votes).

    • This doesn't avoid "broadcasting" over the internet at all.
      Think about it, under this system, EVERYONE is broadcasting/webcasting and each USER would be required to pay the RIAA fee.

      No, it really does avoid that fee. The RIAA would probably be getting a stream from another user who is only streaming it to a few people. And since the rebroadcaster is only relaying data and not keeping track of their connection they can't say how many people are on at any given time. For all they know they are only broadcasting to the RIAA's computer and therefore should not have to pay (why should they have to pay the RIAA for broadcasting their data back to them?)
  • A lot of the feedback (no pun intended) is that there are problems with this system. It won't work, it will be traceable, it isn't Linux compatible, there are bugs, the RIAA will catch them, blah blah bloody-blah.

    At least those guys are trying to come up with a system that will allow free, unfettered broadcasting over the internet. They are trying, and sure there are probably a million holes in their software at this stage, but hey, it never stopped Microsoft.

    I say give them our support, and see if we can't one day have a working P2P broadcast model that is free and untouchable.
  • by Graymalkin (13732) on Sunday June 30 2002, @03:21AM (#3794831) Homepage
    I've gone from being completely indifferent about internet radio to being a huge fan of it in the span of about a year. I have not listened to broadcast music in a couple years now. Just about everything I listened to for a long time came out of my friends and I's CD pools. We'd make compilation albums for each other or just snag songs we particularly enjoyed from albums in each others collections. Broadcast radio has always been shit but recently it has been so bad I simply can't stand to listen to it. I began to go to dozens of concerts from LA to San Diego. Last year I think I tallied 35 concerts in about 9 months. Was I going to see bigass arena shows being hyped by radio stations? Only in a very small handful of cases like the Yahoo Outloud Weezer tour, when I went to the LA and SD shows. Most shows I was going to were indie rock shows and small local shows. Anyhow, I was going to these shows SPECIFICALLY because the bands weren't being played on the radio. People I find incredibly talented like Ozma and The Get Up Kids will be lucky to ever have a single played on a station like KROQ. Going to all the shows I did and picking up albums from bands I liked, I not only put money in their pockets but got introduced to more bands than I can easily recall. These are some badass bands in my opinion but they're not going to be found on the radio.

    Then I started getting into more electronic stuff but was never really one for the electronic scene. I can't stand seeing a bunch of cornbread white guys revving their rice burners in parking lots. It isn't racism or anything, it just looks stupid seeing some pimply faced kid with his Fred Durst hat with a "Powered by VTEC" sticker on his read window. The drugged out raver wannabes aren't exactly up on my list of social affiliations either. Rather than tell them they shouldn't be who they want to be I just avoid the scene entirely. So that leaves me with nowhere to get music other than Napster or something. It is nice to see if I want to spend money on an album but most songs are recorded poorly at too low of a bit rate for my taste. Then I fire up iTunes on my Powerbook and browse to the electronic stations. Holy shit! Music that doesn't sound like ass when I plug it into my sound system and doesn't have an inane DJ being wiggity whack on the air. Fuck yes. Not only do I get a good stream of music but I also have a display of what song I'm listening to in case I find myself interested in the artist. Then there is the choice available, if one station starts in with something I don't like I can double click another one with a different stream. Internet radio has become the radio I've been wanting for years. In an hour block I get to hear about an hour's worth of music, not 10 minutes of decent music, 30 minutes of slop I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy and 20 minutes of inane advertisements for shit I don't buy and DJs I'd rather have shot into the Sun.

    Now it is facing some stiff opposition in the form the RIAA and their demonic minions. I don't want to see internet radio go down because it is the only inexpensive way I've got left to get introduced to some good music. Sharing with my friends is nice but there isn't enough variety to really find off the wall shit I end up really digging. P2P radio seems like an obvious solution because of the P2P buzzword culture surging as of late. The model however runs into serious problems. The RIAA doesn't have to go after a single individual or group of individuals to take out P2P radio like they were able to with various sharing programs. All they have to do is make some deals with cable and DSL providers. Lets say there was a popular P2P radio in my town, all it would take is a deal or lawsuit against Charter and he would be toasted. We'd all end up with our bandwidth curtailed more than it already is and P2P radio would end up specifically forbidden in the AUP.

    Switch to DSL you say? I fucking wish. PacBell couldn't find their dicks if they weren't at the end of their arms. Evne if DSL was viable for some people P2P regulating would still happen on the DSL system. Even with a competitive DSL provider like Covad or someone, they're still renting a pipe from PacBell and the bandwidth usage will make them be regulatory asses too.

    P2P pirate radio is a noble idea I suppose, sticking it to the jackasses that are the RIAA but it is a short term solution to a long term problem. The RIAA has far too many lawyers on their side and enough backing to cow the major cable and DSL providers into line. An idea would be to get together with a bunch of schools around the country. Many schools have broadcast radio stations that don't have to stand up to RIAA scrutiny or lawsuits. They could house and host internet radio stations with the same function as broadcast stations, providing students with hands on experience either behind a mic or in an equipment room, but have much better standing in any internet radio lawsuits. Anything with P2P in the name is going to get turbofucked rather quickly by the RIAA no matter if they can track people down or not. It's sad but true. So who wants to build an island 13 miles off the Montery penninsula with an OC-192 hooked up to it? We could be Sealand Redux.
    • by Cliff (4114) on Sunday June 30 2002, @04:43AM (#3794961) Homepage Journal
      I'm so saddened by the loss of internet radio for precisely the reasons you mentioned. Did the copyright office ever give a specific justification for their rates? (I never bothered to read the ruling...I've been too disgusted with this whole deal. I'll have to suck up and read that damned thing soon, though).

      My point is that it's funny that they should standardize on the same rate as broadcasters when the barrier to entries for webcasting is lower than it is for radio. What's this? If you want to play music for people you have to destroy it by inserting inane yakking, and loud commercials into the flow, just so sponsors get their oh-so-importaint "air time"?

      ("What? No commercials? That's un-American!" [well, at least maybe non-capitalistic, but I digress]).

      Ever since the shutdown, I've gone back to listening to my own CD collection, but for a long time I was listening one of the various SomaFM [somafm.com] streams, sitting back, coding, and occasionally writing down the name of a new group or album that I had never heard. I have made dozens of CD purchases based on that list. That source is gone now, and the list (along with CD purchasing for a few months, it looks like) frozen with its departure.

      Another funny anecdote: While driving (the only time I ever consider subjecting myself to broadcast radio) recently, I actually heard a song I liked. Missed the name of the artist, but I paid close attention to the lyrics to see if I could pick out keywords. Went home, logged in to the nearest P2P network and had that exact song in less than 30 minutes.

      If someone would develop a system with that kind of response time, that would allow me to download what I want by the song, I'd pay for that. The RIAA has had at least half a decade to develop such a system, yet instead they have tried to legislate the technology back into Pandora's Box.

      This disgusts me to no end, and I think I'm now fed up enough where this will now become a Personal Crusade for me. These leeches do the public, and the arts no good. They've refused to evolve, so now it's time for their extinction.

      So...

      ...who wants to build an island 13 miles off the Montery penninsula with an OC-192 hooked up to it? We could be Sealand Redux.
      Count me in on that undertaking. Oh yeah.
    • Ozma = Weezer. Although it doesn't get much worse than the last album. Pinkerton was a bucket of glorious pop, one of the best albums ever, but the "green" album was sub-par, and this latest foray is worse. And Ozma seems to be trying to copy weezer, always has been. Emo-pop-punk. But I think Ozma is better than weezer lately.

      I always thought the Get Up Kids were sub-par. If you like them, you'd LOVE Reggie and the Full Effect. Reggie is incredible, it's what the Get UP Kids should have been.

      I went to the yahoo outloud tour of weezer, (...goes to look at ticket) March 1, 2001, in Charlotte. I got lost trying to find the freakin venue, so I missed ozma, and only saw 1/2 of the get up kids. I wanted to see Ozma, but the Get Up Kids did well. Weezer, though, is incredible live. Whatever they do on albums, their live shows are technically perfect.

      Ah, well, back to Reel Big Fish's new CHEER UP! album. It grows on you, belive me. Also, check out Millencollin - Home from Home.

      ~Will

  • The concept of P2P radio was just begging to be released by the likes of CARP and the RIAA. Well, Hillary Rosen, what have you to say for yourself now that you have uncorked the genie THIS time?

    ...

    And now for something completely different:
    If you have a website, I'll trade you the full version of Spheres of Chaos for a link here. As long as it's not a completely rubbish site that is. I need more traffic. it's a backwater in here... (emphasis added)
    need I say more :)
  • Crashing (Score:2, Informative)

    Someone is purposely crashing the network..if you start it up and click on stations, the streamer program will crash.

    They're sending bad data as new station hosts. Hope he fixes this soon.

    NEW STATION: ' ÷8çu_&#89 93;m¥i#½Eúq"&#8 962;8où& #8745;½n-fäMå'
    NEW STATION: ' ÷8çu_&#89 93;m¥i#½Eúq"&#8 962;8où& #8745;½n-fKå'
    NEW STATION: ' ÷8çu_&#89 93;m¥i#½Eúq"&#8 962;8où& #8745;½n-fIå'
    NEW STATION: 'çlH]rèX&#9570 ; oíQe1\KÇf:za¥G;~& #9532;3ïQc|ï:'
  • damn this thing still uses direct connection you directly connect to the station so you get their IP and then you simple look up their ISP send them a nice letter and get them shut down.
  • they should say

    "If you or any of your family or friends are members or work for the RIAA or the MPAA then you do not have premission to use this software. Also if you work in law enforcement or in the FBI you must delete this software at once."

    Would be intersting.
  • by Perianwyr Stormcrow (157913) on Sunday June 30 2002, @04:08AM (#3794914) Homepage
    A streaming audio solution that WON'T kick your bandwidth's ass is something sorely needed for Internet radio at the moment, period. Regardless of tariffs. Why? Well, if this sort of system gets refined and takes off, suddenly everyone with a suitable connection for one stream can broadcast, instead of having to either a) have a massive pipe or b) hunt down (or pay for!) some sort of relaying service.

    This sort of idea seems destined for the time when everyone has 512k synchronous connections, though, because you'll need double whatever bandwidth is needed for your stream to relay.
    • you'll need double whatever bandwidth is needed for your stream to relay.

      Nope. Every internet connection has two seperate pipes - one up stream and one downstream. Except for some very minor overhead the two directions are independant. When you're recieving something your upstream pipe is still sitting there almost completely unused.

      That's why it pisses me off when people throttle their P2P upstream to something like 1k. They think they can download faster if they aren't uploading. It just isn't true.

      -
  • "The IP of my home PC is automatically added to the list each time you run streamer..."

    How long before an RIAA rep knocks on his door?

  • The fact that the game the guy is selling on his website requires a check to be sent to him in the UK means that RIAA cant shut him down. He is British. He is not affected by your silly US laws (if he sensibly hosts it on a machine in the UK). Simple.

    Steve
    • I'm not selling Streamer.
      I'm trying to sell my game 'Spheres of Chaos', but no-one is buying it anymore. Probably those nice crackers, mistaking me for rich uncle Bill.
      p.s. Source uploaded :-)...but please don't everyone do their own versions yet. I want to implement all my ideas more first.
  • Obvious problems (Score:5, Informative)

    by tlambert (566799) on Sunday June 30 2002, @06:10AM (#3795038)
    The first obvious problem is that by connecting to a number of servers, I don't even need a spanning tree attack to trace the source of the broadcast; I can do it all with the latency differential, to find the "root" node.

    The second obvious problem is that you can't find a broadcast source unless it's advertised, and once it's advertised, it can be found.

    The third obvious problem is that, even if you solve the second obvious problem using a distribguted naming service and... for lack of a better name for it... "AntiBGP", you still have the problem of being able to use differential to find the source of the inital advertisement.

    The fourth obvious problem is that you can find the source through traffic analysis: it's the one without an equal number of packets in and out.

    Something like this can only ever be effective with a distributed flood-fill model, where you can trust your nearest neighbor, or your nearest neighbor doesn't actually know what he has. Effectively, this means that you have to go to a store-and-forward model, use hard crypto on the interconnects, and then generate bogus traffic to avoid analysis.

    At that point, you would have to find a legitimate an legal use for the network before deploying it, or you are minimally an accessory before the fact and/or involved in a conspiracy to commit. If they can point at your node in the network and prove intent, then you are screwed.

    "BlackNet" is really unsuitable for streaming data.

    -- Terry
  • trying to evade thier lawers with p2p schemes and the like is not the answer. while you think you may be soving this problem, your only giving them a reason to call you a pirate(so they have an excuse to buy laws) AND promoting thier artists at the same time! its a win/win for them.

    if you really want to know why CDs cost so much, its nothing more than supply and demand. its becasue people pay that much. if no one pays that much, theyll stop charging that much (after blaming every computer user for piracy, thanks to napster)

    these assholes have money and power because we gave it to them. if we dont give them money, then they cant hire lobyyists or buy themselves senators.

    STOP SUPPORTING THEM!

    its that simple.if we continue to support them, they will continue to try to controll our lives in the intrest of thier profit and to try to make it harder for (non manufactured) artists that they cant control (becase every independant band gets money, and more importantly, mindshare that could instead go to them)

    dont support muscians who are with the RIAA. its not hard, many musicans are not with them. there are many lables that have nothing to do with the RIAA. if musicans you like are with them, write to them. if enough people do, they will notice.

    heres ia a list of RIAA labels.

    http://www.riaa.org/About-Members-1.cfm

    ive been boycotting the RIAA(and MPAA) for years now and i dont feel like im missing much. i still enjoy clubs and concerts, and i still buy CDs. (without worrying that they will break my computer) i know im not denting thier profits, but more importanly i know im not helping them either. i hope that if enough people realize what they are doing and spread the word, they will either change or no longer have the power they do.

    if you are a musician thinking of signing on with an RIAA lable, follow the url below, and keep in mind you wont get any play on internet radio stations.

    http://www.therecordindustry.com/courtney_artist _r ights.htm
    (/. puts the little space after r)
  • by AgTiger (458268) on Sunday June 30 2002, @09:59AM (#3795505) Homepage
    Pirate radio stations tend to be low power, and serve their _local_ neighborhood. They can't be heard across the country, and thus they tend to avoid notice, so long as they don't interfere with other stations, and don't massively offend the listeners who discover them.

    Since 802.11a and 802.11b traffic lives in parts of the spectrum where independent unlicensed transmissions are expected and are the norm, it might be possible to fly under the RIAA's radar with the following configuration:

    - Set up a server with a 10.0.0.0/8 addressing space.
    - DON'T hook it to the internet.
    - Include a DHCP Server.
    - Include a web page to describe what people have reached and allow links to software to listen.
    - Include a submissions directory so anyone who wants to drop an MP3 or OGG on you, CAN.
    - Play interesting music that YOU like, and even DJ the broadcast. (Voice changer might be desireable.)

    Basically, all I'm doing is taking ideas presented in the movie "Pump Up the Volume" [imdb.com] and thinking about how those ideas could be implemented using more modern methods. Done correctly, this could even be done with a mobile configuration in a vehicle.


    'Cast Hard! ;-)


  • Each node might not know where the root of the tree is, but they do know who their parent is. If the RIAA said "tell us who your parent is or we'll assume you're the root", iteratively, they'd find the root PDQ. This contrasts with a network like Freenet, which is designed so that each node really doesn't know where content came from and therefore isn't of much help identifying its real origin. Mesh-structured networks in general also avoid the fragility inherent in tree-structured networks.

    Streamer is not just reinventing the wheel; it's reinventing square wheels when round ones already exist.

  • by dstone (191334) on Sunday June 30 2002, @12:04PM (#3796019) Homepage
    It's also fairly untraceable because each streamer 'host' doesn't reveal any information about whether it is actually the transmitter or not, or where it is getting it's signal from.

    I'm taking a guess here, but as long as you're still one of the upstream hosts serving an unauthorized/unroyaltied/unlicensed stream of audio, you might be shut down. Would it really matter if you were the root of a tree where the stream originated from? Even if you're not the root, you're copying and re-serving the stream yourself.

    "Did you steal this music?"
    "No, I just found this stream and I'm sharing it."
  • by TrentC (11023) <jelmore49 AT gmail DOT com> on Sunday June 30 2002, @12:18PM (#3796068) Homepage
    A friend of mine and I were talking about setting up an internet radio site (or at least a recurring program); as a result, I started following the whole CARP/webcasting royalty thing. I wrote letters (yes, actual, physical letters) to my Congressmen -- I even got a reply from Senator Gordon Smith (not a form letter-type reply, either). I was pleased to see the Librarion of Congress throw out the initial recommendation, but disappointed to see the revised recommednation get accepted.

    The guys who wrote this program are completely playing into the RIAA's hands -- by basically stating that their intent is to screw the RIAA and avoid paying the fees, they give the RIAA more ammo to get even more draconian measures adopted.

    I'm not clear why everyone thinks a P2P (ooh, buzzword time!) streaming radio solution is going to make the situation any better. Our energies are better spent talking to our representatives and showing them that internet radio promotes choice and diversity in music (both for RIAA-sponsored and non-RIAA sponsored artists), pointing out that lots of smaller business will have a positive effect on the economy (not only the RIAA, but ASCAP and BMI get more royalty fees from lots of small "stations"; plus people have to buy recording/mixing/broadcasting equipment, there's those broadband connections...) I have proof in my hand that at least one Senator will listen.

    Jay (=
    • Ah, but can they DOS 100 million people at once? It will sure be fun watching them try. Especially when out of country script kiddies start firing back at them.

      Heck, maybe someone should write a program which makes mozilla or explorer refresh the RIAA homepage every 20 seconds. With about 50 million people running that, it would kill the RIAA in bandwidth costs alone.
    • That's because you are using NAT. Don't blame firewalling. Firewalling != NAT. Not at all.

      I have a firewalled network, and it works just fine.

      This is what happens when we cross layer boundaries. Apps that don't play well with nat are apps that embed their IP address in higher layer data.. so layer 4 assumes it knows what's going on at layer 3. Bad idea.

      optimizing network technology is not related to nat.

    • A tool to track a spanning tree across network backbones would not be hard to write; the broadcaster is simply the root of the tree.

      Please describe the operation of such a tool. Given encrypted communication between nodes, how do you determine from the outside whether any given node is a relay or source?

      ISPs (who have the right to know how you're using their property)
      No more so than telephone companies have the "right" to eavesdrop on your conversations, or the post office to read your mail.
      ...the theft of intellectual property...
      Copying is not theft.
      fundamentally sound societies have strong processes to ensure their values are respected across all aspects of life

      "Fundamentally sound" societies are those that recongize a diversity of values. "Fundamentally sound" societies recognize that sharing information is what makes us human. "Fundamentally sound" societies are not operated for the benefit of media conglomerates.