MGM v. Grokster: Here's Why P2P is Valuable 732
Briefs defending Grokster's right to exist were filed yesterday in MGM v. Grokster, from Intel, Creative Commons [PDF], and many others. Among them, 17 computer science professors laid out the case for P2P, beginning with principles: "First, the United States' description of the Internet's design is wrong. P2P networks are not new developments in network design, but rather the design on which the Internet itself is based." Pointedly, the EFF compares this case's arguments to those made over 20 years ago in the Betamax case, which established the public's right to use video-copying technology, because of its "substantial non-infringing uses," even though many used videotape to infringe copyright. We'll soon see whether that right will extend to peer-to-peer software: the Supreme Court takes this up on March 29th.
Oral Arguments (Score:3, Interesting)
Is anyone in the DC area going to go?
You're honor, my opponent is an idiot. (Score:3, Interesting)
BURN!
Fucking awsome!
Will We Get a Landmark Ruling? (Score:5, Interesting)
This will be interesting, but I'm a little nervous about *where* the Supreme Court will take this one. Applying constitutionality to modern technology is a little tricky; Roe v Wade, for instance, gave us a ruling based on the combined interpretation of several amendments resulting in a "right to privacy."
Are p2p networks covered by our right to gather? Our right to associate? Our right to privacy? Which amendments will apply to the laws being challenged?
I certainly hope for a ruling favorable towards p2p. But not just for p2p--also because whatever ruling gets handed down will likely set a lot of precedent for other cases where corporate interests weigh in against developing technology.
Free Sony PlayStation Portables [tinyurl.com] from Gratis.
Substantial non-infringing uses (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Test (Score:2, Interesting)
Is it legal to record off the radio? (Score:4, Interesting)
If the Supreme Court is truly serous about Copyright Law then it will need to enact a heavy Copyright Infringement Tax on any goods being shipping in from China and other coutries where the Copyright Law is Totally Abused. Forget dinkering around with filesharing networks that cost pennies in relation to the world practice of not paying $10/movie like US citizens have to do to see the movie!
When I was a kid people used to record tapes off the radio. Is that legal?
If so, why not make a frieTunes that sucks songs off the Internet radio stations and, if you have a radio card, the radio? Just tell fT what you want and it trolls for it and then sucks it into your personal listening library.
BTW, corporations are having a hard time adapting their business models to new technology. One thing history has shown is that countries that burn their fleets to hide exposure to the rest of the world (China) or ignore technology (battery in India) fell woefully behind. Allowing a supreme court to drive technology adoption is ludicrous.
We all know that technology such as file sharing is not going to die. Some country will have copyright-bypassing DVD burners by the end of the year and then, again, China will sell movies for $1 while the USA people are gouged for $10 at the theater! So, then the US government-backed economists will tell us the cost of living is lower is why our jobs are making a mass exodus but have not the fortitude to admit they have enacted a legal system that financially attacks Americans/lets other coutries off scott free.
Sadly, this is a case of extracting money from whoever can pay rather than enforcing legal justice. To continue to turn a blind eye on the rampant Copyright Infringements in Asia while attacking filesharing is like giving a speeding ticket to the guy late for work while failing to even investigate thefts (oh yeah, I'm wure we've all experienced this!!!).
Re:Excuse me while I bang my head on the wall (Score:4, Interesting)
The Betamax Case (Score:3, Interesting)
I submit that Betamax has done more for this world than VHS ever will from this case alone. Thank you Sony! And I'm sorry the format didn't achieve better acceptance.
I'm especially reminded of this ever time I do a visual scan on a VHS machine, that has never worked as smoothly and easily as Betascan[tm] did from its very first incarnation.
RIP Betamax. Gone, but never forgotten!
Re:NRA (Score:4, Interesting)
On a side note, the problem I had with that bill was that the courts should be making that distinction on their own, and the bill itself could have led to you being unable to sue Glock if you were shooting one and it exploded in your face. I am not an NRA fanboy, but I support many of the things they do nonetheless. This is just not their area of expertise.
Re:I'm not confident -- Oh, The Children, sob... (Score:5, Interesting)
And 100% of those "children" thought it was just fine to execute other human beings. Some of them even felt it was okay to execute other human beings because they were children still, and therefore the state couldn't do anything really bad to them.
Those are not people I want to live beside afterwards. So just where are your priorities?
Re:Test (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:No, No, No (Score:3, Interesting)
<rant type="creepy-technotopian">Curse those founders for writing the constitution in English! Natural languages are terrible at writing laws in them. Far too vague. We need to invent an artificial language to write laws in! Then they could be parsed by computers!</rant>
Re:Analogy time, boys and girls. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Analogy time, boys and girls. (Score:3, Interesting)
So what? In the US, guns are still legal even though don't seem to have ANY legitimate use. The irony is that we are more likely to see P2P banned before guns are. After all, when the NRA comes to protest in numbers on your doorstep, you take notice. When a bunch of iPod toting teens show up, you probably think, "meh".
"There was a guild of canon balls;
Their motto was 'don't tread on me'."
Re:Is it legal to record off the radio? (Score:3, Interesting)
You should look at my cable bill.
HDTV service, HD DVR, & broadband.
That corp is getting almost 100% of my music, movie, and internet funds. The only thing they don't get paid for is when I see a concert in person.
Re:Is it legal to record off the radio? (Score:3, Interesting)
Short and wrong. Recording radio broadcasts, even making your own mix tapes with them as long as you don't use those for commercial purposes, is and has always been legal. The record companies never really opposed that as far as I know. Broadcast radio tends to be their conscious tool, and the quality is low and gets lower with remixing - unlike digital media - all of which made the tape recorder much less threatening technology in the view of the record companies in its day than digital recordings are seen by them now.
Re:EFF (Score:3, Interesting)
Never mind that my program would be completely, utterly useless as a spam tool. It acts as an interface to the anonymous remailer network, with is only somewhat reliable at best, and could not possibly support the high volume of messages a spammer would want to broadcast. Nonetheless, I have a wife and kids and didn't feel like being the poster boy in the fight against a stupid law.
So, I wrote an explanatory letter to the EFF to ask for their advice (and possibly their assistance) in killing the proposition before it became law. To this day, I've never received so much as an email in response. I know that my message was delivered (maillog said so), but when it was my back against the wall, the organization I've donated to for years (to the point of buying memberships as birthday presents for geeky friends) was nowhere to be found.
I still like and respect the EFF - they do good things and I support their goals - but I'm no longer under the illusion that I can count on them when things go bad. Don't let my story stop you from donating to them, but neither should you go ahead and write that law- or patent-violating program with the expectation that you have friends who will step up to the plate for you.
Re:Substantial non-infringing uses (Score:2, Interesting)
If the government shut down P2P this would not stop you from non copyright infringing transfers. People need to stop pretending that Napster and all of its descendents are not for stealing music and software, they are specifically meant for that.
Re:Excuse me while I bang my head on the wall (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course the government will appeal in hopes of finding a friendly court, probably in Virginia. Last time this case made it to the Supreme Court they punted on a jurisdiction technicality and let the person rot in jail for a while longer while it was filed in South Carolina where Padilla, a civilian, is being held in isolation in a Navy brig. Padilla may be an Al Qaida member, and might have been planning terrorist acts but if there is any shred of our constitution left the government has to lay charges and prove it in a court of law, and not in front of a kangaroo court of a military tribunal.
On a less happy note I found thisarticle [counterpunch.org] nteresting about an obscure defense contractor called ESSI who with the help of George W.'s Uncle Bucky has rocketed to being a major defense contractor, and is specializing in war profiteering in Iraq, mostly thanks to sole source contracts steered their way by friends in the Bush administration. Uncle Bucky was apparently tipped off that the Pentagon was going to launch an investigation of how they were landing all these juicy sole source, no risk contracts, and dumped a half million in stock just before the bad news came out. It sure is great to be a Bush and friend of the Republicans these days
Re:I'm not confident (Score:3, Interesting)
You state that some people believe that there is a distinction between taking an innocent life, taking the life of the guilty, and accidental death. There is not.
I agree that accidental death is different. There is no intent to kill. The other two are no different, though. Either knowingly killing someone is wrong, or it is not. A person may believe that the wrong avoided by killing someone makes it justifiable, but that does not change the underlying moral decision on whether killing is right or wrong.
My belief is that the only time killing a person is justifiable is when it is done because there is no choice - the person must be killed to protect another person or people. If a person is in prison, they cannot harm other people. So, executing them is wrong. If that same person were out of jail and was attempting to kill someone else, the police would be justified in killing him to stop him.
This has nothing to do with abortion. As another poster said very well, what is involved when deciding on abortion is deciding what makes a human. Becoming human is a process. Until that mass of cells that is created by the joining of the sperm and the egg becomes human, abortion is not killing. Since there is not a scientific or medical definition of when that happens, it is up to each person to decide. Therefore, under the law, abortion should remain a personal choice.
Re:P2P + BitTorrent (Score:3, Interesting)
If you then setup a tunnel to someone else, and dont tell me who they are, but route packets back and forth, I can ping a person whose identity is a mystery to me.
If they in turn, connect to a 4th person, and we get the routing right, you can ping that person, who is anonymous to you, also.
If we set up a sane, manageable architecture that minimizes the number of direct connections you need, we can build a large network, perhaps an entire
We could have dns, websites, email, irc, and lord knows what else. We could make it a policy to choose only international partners... if you geoip them, and they're in the same country as you, don't let them in. That doesn't keep the FBI out (if you're in the US) but it makes them work harder. They'd have to rent a shell, and wait in the hopes that an american invites them, after all. If they do get lucky, well, they can arrest you, and cut off their only access to the network.