Slyck.com
 | |
Type of site | News site with articles and statistics on the state of major P2P networks. |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Owner | Tom Mennecke |
| Created by | Tom Mennecke, Ray Hoffmann |
| URL | slyck.com |
| Registration | Optional (to post on forum). |
Slyck.com is a website once dedicated to file sharing, updating the public on file sharing news, presenting reviews of file sharing software and opinion on file sharing, and interviewing the developers of file sharing software. At present, Slyck.com links to news articles on other websites, posted by members, and has a user forum.
History
Slyck.com began operations as Slyway.com in 2000, owned by Ray Hoffman.[3] During this time, Slyway.com was an aggregate news site with some original content. It also had guides to the most popular file-sharing resources at the time. These included Napster, iMesh, Scour, Usenet and IRC.
Slyway.com began writing its own news articles, which became a notable feature of the site because there were very few other sources of news on P2P and filesharing development, and would become one of the first sites dedicated to P2P and file-sharing with original news. A year after Slyway.com opened, it was renamed Slyck.com.
In March 2010, Slyck.com was threatened with legal action[4] by the controversial[5][6] UK law firm ACS:Law for defamation, due to comments made by forum users on Slyck.com's UK Filesharing Allegations/Lawsuit Discussion Sub Forum.[7]
Slyck.com was one of the first news websites for P2P, but according to Alexa Internet, Slyck.com was surpassed in the number of web pageviews by both Zeropaid.com and TorrentFreak.com from around 2007.[8]
Reception
New Scientist cited it as a "popular file sharing news site",[9] Digital Audio Essentials (2004) referred to Slyck.com as "an excellent resource",[10] and in Steal This Computer Book 4.0 the site was considered to be "up to date on the latest filesharing technology and news."[11]
Notable articles
Slyck.com was at the forefront of P2P news, and as such they were able to interview the individuals who were involved in P2P software development. The following are significant articles about P2P:
- P2P developers Michael Weiss of StreamCast,[12] Nir Arbel of SoulSeek,and [13] Pablo Soto of Optisoft S.L[14] and Kevin Hearn[15][16] of WinMX all gave detailed answers to the future of the networks that they had established.
- Jon Lech Johansen (DVD Jon),[17] who was involved in decoding the CSS encryption found on DVDs and released the DeCSS software that allowed DVDs to be duplicated, gave his account to Slyck. Muslix64,[18] the hacker who first circumvented the AACS protection scheme for HD DVD and Blu-ray discs discussed his reasons for the circumvention of the DRM found on Blu-ray and HD-DVD discs.[19][20][21] The circumvention of DRM on video discs allowed those video films to be shared on public P2P platforms.
- Dean Garfield, then the head of the MPAA's legal team, was interviewed to give the Entertainment Industry's view on P2P in 2005.[22]
References
- ^ "Slyck.com Site Info". Alexa Internet. Retrieved 2014-04-01.
- ^ Slyck.com Whois record. godaddy.com. Retrieved 2010-07-14.
- ^ "Slyck 2.0" Slyck forum, April 5, 2006.
- ^ "Wank Plan Goes Wrong ACS:Law Threatens Slyck.com With a Lawsuit". Thomas Mennecke, Slyck News, March 21, 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-28.
- ^ Piracy letter campaign 'nets innocents' BBC News, January 26, 2010.
- ^ Major law firm drops filesharing threats - Staff continue 'bullying' at smaller outfit Chris Williams, The Register, May 12, 2009. Retrieved 2010-07-28.
- ^ "UK Filesharing Allegations/Lawsuit Discussion Sub Forum". Slyck Forum.
- ^ Pageviews for Slyck, Zeropaid, TorrentFreak Alexa.com. Retrieved 2010-07-14.
- ^ "Movie file-sharing hubs poised to decentralise". Will Knight, NewScientist.com, December 22, 2004.
- ^ Digital Audio Essentials. Bruce Fries and Marty Fries, O'Reilly Media, 2005. p 94. ISBN 978-0-596-00856-7. Retrieved 2010-07-14.
- ^ Steal This Computer Book 4.0. Wallace Wang, No Starch Press, 2006. p 165. ISBN 978-1-59327-105-3. Retrieved 2010-07-14.
- ^ "Interview with the CEO of StreamCast Networks". Slyck News, August 16, 2003.
- ^ "SoulSeek Interview", Thomas Mennecke, Slyck News, December 26, 2003.
- ^ "Interview with Pablo Soto of the Manolito P2P Network", Thomas Mennecke, Slyck News, February 17, 2004
- ^ "WinMX Interview". Thomas Mennecke, Slyck News, December 25, 2003.
- ^ "The Future of WinMX" Thomas Mennecke, MP3newswire.net, January 27, 2003.
- ^ Slyck.com Interviews Jon Lech Johansen. Thomas Mennecke, Slyck News, April 4, 2005.
- ^ "Interview with muslix64, Developer of BackupHDDVD". Slyck.com, January 24, 2007
- ^ "Hi-def DVD security is bypassed". BBC News, January 26, 2007.
- ^ "Why One Angry Customer Broke AACS". Derek Slater, Electronic Frontier Foundation, January 26, 2007.
- ^ "Hacker Opens Crack In High-Def Movie DRM - HD movie player format cracked". Antone Gonsalves, InformationWeek, January 26, 2007.
- ^ "Slyck Interviews the MPAA". Nicholas Parr, Slyck.com, December 22, 2005.