Ed Felten's tinyp2p [LWN.net]

Ed Felten's tinyp2p

Posted Dec 15, 2004 17:17 UTC (Wed) by dash2 (guest, #11869)
Parent article: Ed Felten's tinyp2p

Not sure the argument holds. Although anyone can write p2p software, a network is only useful when it becomes large. Once it is large, it is probably a viable target for legal proceedings.

Even if the software has no clear legal owner (or there are many implementations of a p2p protocol), a network is only useful when many files are shared on it. Sharing is usually done mostly by a few people who share many files, rather than by everyone sharing a few files. Again, those people are viable targets for legal proceedings.

So even if p2p software is easy to write, it doesn't follow that banning it is pointless.

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Ed Felten's tinyp2p

Posted Dec 15, 2004 17:36 UTC (Wed) by josh_stern (guest, #4868) [Link]

My thought is that Ed Felten is trying to help legislators see that the
sensible road for them to go down is ban a particular kind of behavior
(making material governed by somebody else's copyright or license
accessible) rather than implementation of some relatively trivial and
common programming constructs. Showing that P2P programs can have lots
of legitimate and beneficial uses would be another part of that argument.

Unfortunately, I'm kind of ignorant about the status of any proposed
legislation to ban P2P software in some form. What about a company like
Groove? http://www.groove.net/home/index.cfm Are legislators somewhere
thinking of putting them out of business?

Ed Felten's tinyp2p

Posted Dec 16, 2004 1:40 UTC (Thu) by bk (guest, #25617) [Link]

DISCLAIMER: IANAL

Bernstein v. United States established code as free speech, meaning that it isn't lawful to ban a type of software outright any more than it's legal to ban certain classes of books or publications. However, it may be lawful to ban the use of such software. Compare this to bomb-making recipes: legal to write and publish one, not legal to use one to create and/or use an explosive device.

So it's entirely possible that some brilliant, well-lobbied legislator might decide to try to ban P2P networks or the use thereof on US soil. This is the threat we need to fight.

Ed Felten's tinyp2p

Posted Dec 16, 2004 15:59 UTC (Thu) by ccchips (subscriber, #3222) [Link]

One of my rural friends omce told me this story, when I was discussing with him the banning of (and widespread use of) explosives.

Farmers have apparently uesd (and continue to use) "potentially lethal" explosives to prepare a field for fencing or hedging of one kind or another. They take soda cans, fill them with explosives, put them into a relatively small hole in a certain way, and then rig a wire with concussion caps along the whole setup. He told me they can prepare for a fence in a significantly shorter time, and with far less work, than using other methods.

This pertained to the Oklahoma bombing---he said many farmers were put off by the notion that ownership of explosives somehow implied intent to harm.

I'm starting to view the right to own and operate a potentially "infringing" or "harmful" computer application the same way people have viewed the right to bear arms. It's said that criminals have moved from the streets to the Web, yet the Web doesn't have what one could call an "established police force." It could be argued, therefore, that some of the same software which might be used to infringe copyrights could also be used to help pritect oneself from abuse by other (domestic and foreign) Internet users. If such a link could be established, it would be a compelling proof of the two-edged nature or these technologies.

My favorite example right now is the MPAA's attack on BitTorrent. I happen to know that the technology is used to distribute a great deal of material that has nothing to do with the MPAA's or RIAA's members. Yet, from what I can tell, these rich folks are attempting to implicate the technology, rather than the abusers, for causing their problems. If people who are using BitTorrent for real work and commerce were to step forward and point this out, clearly and publicly, it might be a way to counter the MPAA and RIAA in their rampage against technology.

Ed Felten's tinyp2p

Posted Dec 16, 2004 16:45 UTC (Thu) by jhardin (guest, #3297) [Link]

"...many farmers were put off by the notion that ownership of explosives somehow implied intent to harm."

Absolutely.

My belief is that you should be able to possess *anything you want*. The only legally defensible reason to restrict ownership of something is if that thing is dangerous by itself - e.g. certain biological and radioactive materials, where improper storage leads to a significant public hazard.