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[FYI] P2P Kaempfe bis aufs Messer: Es wird ums Prinzip gehen.
- To: debate@fitug.de
- Subject: [FYI] P2P Kaempfe bis aufs Messer: Es wird ums Prinzip gehen.
- From: "Axel H Horns" <horns@ipjur.com>
- Date: Tue, 13 Mar 2001 09:47:46 +0100
- Comment: This message comes from the debate mailing list.
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http://www.newscientist.com/features/features.jsp?id=ns22812
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Cyber-revolutionaries are abandoning the Web to build an anarchic,
censorship-free alternative.
Kurt Kleiner reports
[...]
But even for Gnutella, legal problems are looming. It's true that the
system is less centralised than Napster, but that doesn't mean
there's nobody to go after. About half of all Gnutella files are
provided by just 1 per cent of users, and that 1 per cent present a
big, fat target to anyone who wants to start suing for copyright
infringement.
See you in court
The organisation most likely to start filing lawsuits is the
Recording Industry Association of America. "We have not done any
enforcement against Gnutella at this point. But that's not going to
last long," says Frank Creighton, director of the RIAA's anti-piracy
initiative. When the RIAA decides to move, he says, it will probably
target that active 1 per cent. Finding out who they are shouldn't be
hard because Gnutella servents need to know one another's IP
addresses to communicate. Anyone can find out which ISP hosts a
particular IP address, and after that a threatening letter or writ
can have the user kicked off or force the ISP to reveal a name that
can be pursued through the courts.
But there is a P2P network that looks capable of evading the lawyers.
Called Freenet, it's a radical system created from the ground up to
be anonymous and censorship-proof.
[...]
Not everyone accepts that Freenet is as censorship-proof as Clarke
thinks. Creighton reckons he can bring it down by getting the IP
addresses of individual nodes, sending letters to ISPs, and taking
some users to court, just as he wants to do with Gnutella.
But if Clarke turns out to be correct, Freenet will usher in a
different world. No one will be able to stop you downloading free
music files from the Internet. You'll be able to criticise the rich
and powerful without fear of being silenced or punished. And you'll
be able to read whichever spy memoir your government is trying to
suppress at the moment.
By the same token, you'll be powerless to stop people from
plagiarising your copyrighted work or telling lies about you. Nobody
will be able to take down child pornography or stolen nuclear
secrets.
Napster set out to give us free music, but it seems to have put us on
the road to absolute freedom of speech. If so, the real challenge
hasn't even begun.
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