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[FYI] Experts Say Napster, Playing Dumb, Resists Possible Tech Cure for Copyright Infringement
- To: debate@fitug.de
- Subject: [FYI] Experts Say Napster, Playing Dumb, Resists Possible Tech Cure for Copyright Infringement
- From: "Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>
- Date: Fri, 20 Oct 2000 10:17:05 +0200
- Comment: This message comes from the debate mailing list.
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http://www.inside.com/story/Story_Cached/0,2770,11683_9_12_1,00.html
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Experts Say Napster, Playing Dumb, Resists Possible Tech Cure for
Copyright Infringement
By Charles C. Mann and Roger Parloff
Wednesday, October 18 04:53 p.m.
[...]
While it's hard to tell precisely what Beezer and Schroeder meant by
the tough grilling they gave to RIAA lawyers, their apparent belief
that Napster can't monitor or control its users echoes the company's
public stance. ''The underlying principle of the technology and the
service is that... Napster provides the tools, but has no ability to
impose limitations or exercise control,'' company co-founder Shawn
Fanning testified before a Senate Judiciary hearing on Oct. 9.
But according to programmers who have reverse-engineered Napster's
peer-to-peer sharing technology in order to develop open-source
clones, the judges seemed to be discussing a different computer
program than the one they are so familiar with. While Napster may not
be able to control which MP3s the ''kid in Hackensack'' chooses to
make available to the Napster system, programmers argue that the
company could, with relative ease, screen out the great majority of
infringing files from its music directory.
''Having been one of the many people who analyzed Napster's protocol,
it's pretty clear to me that the judges were misinformed,'' says
independent programmer David Weekly, a long-time fixture on the MP3
scene who has posted an analysis of Napster's protocol on the
Internet. ''Napster knows who is sharing what with whom else, and
they could stop it.''
[...]
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