Free to Be P-to-P

any number of restrictions on files, Slater chose to give away the song in the open MP3 format. Instead of charging, playing the track triggers a prompt to install TryMedia's DRM software, a relatively small and quick download at 700KB. Once installed, the track not only plays in its entirety but a browser window opens to Slater's Web page, where listeners can get more information, download other songs and make voluntarily contributions to Slater.

"The voluntary payments thing was a sidenote," says Slater, who has earned $145 through Fairtunes.com, a "virtual tip jar" site, and an undisclosed amount through Amazon.com's Honor System compensation program. "But for me, bringing people into the community is as valuble as the payment. It's really important to get people visiting my site."

Fairtunes CEO Matt Goyer says that while the idea of voluntary payments is a noble one, it's a better in theory than in practice. "We've had a hard time making a go of it," he says. "It's a nice thought, but until the artist embraces it and promotes it to fans, it won't take off."

Still, Goyer says he'll incorporate voluntary micropayment functionality into a Napster-like software client he's trying to set up in Sealand, an island off the shore of Great Britain. He's also developing e-commerce with Snarfzilla, a file-sharing application based on the Freenet p-to-p technology.

Freenet author Ian Clarke is also launching a business based on elements of his software. Uprizer, which just closed a $4 million round of funding from Intel and others, is still in extreme stealth mode, but Clarke is trying to distance himself from the piracy rap, positioning the company as a business-to-business play that provides content distribution infrastructure.

"You have to draw a distinction between file-sharing applications that are readymade for copyright infringement, and peer-to-peer as an architecture idea," Richard Koman, editor of Openp2p.com, the peer-to-peer portal of technology think tank O'Reilly and Associates. With the Uprizer investment, he says, Intel is taking "a very long-term view of what the Internet is going to look llike, and how they're going to provide the basic building blocks."