FITUG e.V.
Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft
FITUG e.V.Förderverein Informationstechnik und Gesellschaft |
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http://www.inside.com/story/Story_Cached/0,2770,11683_9_12_1,00.html
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.''
[...]