The Technology Liberation Front - Latest Comments in Peer-to-peer is Just a Tool

Re: Peer-to-peer is Just a Tool

BubbaDude — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 05:34:57 -0000

The Ars article is a nice series of red herrings. When a university uses BitTorrent to distribute legal content over their own pipes, nobody's going to complain. But when a pirate uses BitTorrent to distribute illegal content over bandwidth they hijacked from an ISP, that's rather a different story, isn't it?

The latter is a criminal act in two different ways, arguably, but neither has anything to do with the tool by which it's done.

Crime is crime, no matter how you do it.

Re: Peer-to-peer is Just a Tool

eee_eff — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:07:34 -0000

Exactly.

In fact many of the smaller linux distros are only available via bit-torrent.

Even the larger ones--for example SuSE--have certain editions--for example the DVD of an alpha or beta version--only availabe via bit Torrent.

One of the reasons why I liked the Sony decision is that it's substantial noninfringing use test was so reasonable, and carried over into so many technologies (mp3 players, P2P) in a non-freedom destroying way.

Re: Peer-to-peer is Just a Tool

ryanradia — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 19:08:23 -0000

Well said. Placing blanket restrictions on P2P apps might make sense at the moment for ISPs like Comcast, but as things like Vuze and WoW become more mainstream, targeting specific protocols will end up doing more harm than good for ISPs as customers become more attached to legitimate uses of file sharing programs.

Tim, you make a good point about the Grokster ruling as well. It essentially gives future networks a blueprint for evading suit, because as long as a network does not knowingly advertise or advance copyright infringment and offers some legitimate uses, that network cannot be shut down.

For example, take the <a href="http://www.news.com/8301-13578_3-9798715-38.html" rel="nofollow">usenet.com lawsuit. Of all the newshosting providers, the media companies are targeting the one that openly advertises its service as a method for acquiring digital media files. Other bigger fish like Giganews are a lot smarter, making no mention of anything related to infringement. So unless a landmark ruling emerges, services which profit from illegally transferred intellectual property seem immune from liability as they keep complying with DMCA takedown requests properly.