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The New World of Gnutella
Frater 219 writes "The censorship-resistant systems Gnutella and Freenet got some reasonably positive editorial coverage in the Sacramento Bee and Nando Times today. Here's the article. It's rather good stuff: 'Echoes of the old hacker manifesto begin to ring loudly once again: Information wants to be free.'" Good piece, go read it.
Please. Why do people feel the need to gloss over the purpose of programs like Napster and Gnutella. I'm an Open Source Programmer, and I know damn well that Napster is used to download illegal mp3s more than anything else. Same with Gnutella.
Implying that it is "censorship" to protect one's copyrights is absurd. I know that this is an "advocacy" site, but keep in mind that this sort of doubletalk makes you guys look like the small children who, when caught with their hands in the cookie jar, protest their innocence to the last. The fact that Slashdot implicitly condones such action reflects poorly on the Free Software Community. Not all Free Software Users wish to violate copyrights; for many uf us, that's the reason we switched to Free Software.
Sorry, I don't buy that this is the Linux-using David vs. the big, bad, coporate censor Goliath. People use Napster to break the laws. We have bans on certain types of guns which are used to break the law (eg, assault rifles, which have *no* legitimate purpose), likewise, Napster could be legally banned. Sure, maybe 1/100,000th of Napster users download only legit mp3s, but let's not paint to bright a picture of copyright violations, eh emmett?
Information does not want to be free. People want other people's information to be free. How can any reasonable /.er get up in arms about doubleclick.net gathering surfing information, and then claim that information wants to be free.
I certainly don't want the contents of swiss bank accounts to be free. I don't want the information about my last Doctor visit to be free. I don't want the information about where I live or my favoutite porno movie to be free for every John Q. Nobody to claim rights to and play with until his hearts content.
Napster/Gnutella was designed to facilitate the distribution of private mp3 collections. These will generally consist of copyrighted material. I think that its important that people not forget that, while the music companies are big and evil, they have rights too. That means that they have a legitimate gripe with the free distribution of material that they've paid to protect and that they want to sell. I know that napster can be used to distribute other non-copyrighted material, and that's great, but lets not forget the tainted ground on which the thing started. I'm a big free speech advocate, and I download mp3s too, but lets not be totally ignorant as to why napster was created.
The Hacker Manifesto was written back in the ancient eighties by a hacker named Mentor. Read it.......it may be about you.
Also of interest may be the Hacker's Ethic. Something of a code that should be lived by, particularly by those reading these pages. It's where the, "Informationwants/should be free", quote comes from.
"Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality." -- Dalai Lama
The people here who are defending copyright don't seem to get the point. Freenet isn't about violating copyright -- it's about giving people the power to share information anonymously and inviolably. Freenet can be used to trade MP3s the same way that a 1 GHz Pentium III box can be used to bash someone's brains out.
It's tempting to try to stamp out IP violations (not to mention terrorism and kidd1e pr0n) by regulating probable channels of distribution, but history shows that when the government has that kind of power, it's never used as it was intended. I'd rather have an internet with Freenet and illegally distributed music than an internet where copyright is sacrosanct but everyone who downloaded DeCSS or visited Peacefire.org or looked for harm-reduction information on ecstasy could be traced and have the law loosed against them.
Fantasy? You know the corporations and the government would do this if they could. We need hardcore privacy protection not to permit immoral acts but to preserve our freedom to act morally.
note: if you prefer, "unreasonable/reasonable," "unsustainable/sustainable," and "antisocial/prosocial," among others, can all be substituted into the above paragraph for the controversial m-word...
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Go ahead, blame me... I voted for Nader!
When people have access to easy means of duplicating and transmitting large quantities of information, they will tend to behave in such a way that any particular piece of information, if it is interesting to even a tiny minority, will tend to spread among people to the extent that it is interesting.
In fact, they will desire to behave in this way so much that it will not be possible to stop the spread of any particular piece of information without causing severe harm to the people interested in it -- as by depriving them of privacy, security, and the use of their personal effects.
These people will resist such harm -- through political activism, boycotts, and technical workarounds. They may well also, when their ability to spread interesting information is threatened, react by spreading it more and more quickly. (See the case of Scientology's persecution of Internet-based critics, or the cases of Napster and Gnutella for that matter.) This is what is meant by "The Internet interprets censorship as system damage and routes around it" -- which is not a statement about the technical operations of the Internet (actual routers and hosts) but about the way people use it.
Hence, if you look at the communications-system from the point of view of a piece of information, you will see that information spreading in such a way that it appears to "want to be free".
(No, information does not have opinions. But then, neither does a plant, yet plants "want to" grow towards light sources, due to chemical reactions in their cells. Electricity doesn't have opinions either, but it "wants to" seek ground, and follow the path of lowest resistance. Anthropomorphism is our friend.)
Am I the only person who hates Napster/Gnutella with a passion?
The network at my university has been maxed out at 98% outgoing or so, 80% incoming for quite some time due to Napster. How do I know? Because last Wednesday, they banned it, and this dropped to about 30% outgoing, 50% incoming.
The network here has been mostly unusable for months, and it has been because of Napster.
Now, admittedly, the biggest reason for the outgoing is most likely the fact that Napster doesn't close when you click the "X" in the upper right of the window. Instead, it backgrounds itself and goes into the system tray. This means that people who have no clue how to use a computer excepting to play mp3s and use a word processor get Napster on the advice of a more knowledgeable friend, and proceed to share out gigs of mp3s to the world 24/7. With Gnutella, this probably isn't as big of a problem.
Anyways, I can't be happier that it is banned, and I can hardly feel bad for people whining that they can't steal music with ease anymore. If you can't even take the time to browse IRC or the web for your pirated music, you're pretty pathetic. You're getting it free to begin with, so I have no sympathy for you just because you might have to actually do the smallest bit of work to get it.
My rant for now,
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
People use Napster to break the laws.
Some laws need to broken. Some need to be smashed so hard their teeth rattle. And please spare me the little kiddy not wantin' to pay for CDs spiel, I've heard it, it doesn't apply here. Please explain to me how having 600,000 songs at my fingertips is wrong when I'm paying for bandwidth, diskspace, and promotion. (equivelent to reproduction, distrubution, and promotion in the old world)
let's not paint to bright a picture of copyright violations, eh emmett?
How bright is this?
Keep the music flowing.
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+&x
This is perceived as a threat to traditional publishing and recording industries just as radio was, and the mimeograph, and television, and the photocopier, and magnetic tape, and the compact disc, and the videocassette recorder, and many other technologies that made sharing information easier. Freenet doesn't do anything different from what can already be done with those technologies, it just does it more efficiently.
tangent - art and creation are a higher purpose
postmoderncore - art and creation are a higher purpose
Just like to mention that an alternative to copyrights is the Street Performer Protocol by Bruce Schneier. He predicted the advent of systems like this and offers up a partial solution.
I haven't seen anyone really take a stab at setting it up yet though.
Debatable: 'Protecting one's copyrights' is censorship. It can be interpreted as warranted in the interest of promoting economic reward for creative endeavors (which is actually intended to encourage creative endeavors, not economic reward per se), but it is still the suppression of someone else's speech.
Non-debatable: 'Protecting one's copyrights' has certainly been used by organizations, normally large businesses, to censor the speech of others in the case of satire, parody and so forth. The key point here is how far copyrights extend. Parodies of Mickey Mouse (including all kinds of offensive parodies that 'most people' wouldn't like) are actually legally protected but despite this are impossible to defend from armies of lawyers. There are many other examples.
People tend to forget that copyright was created at a specific time with a specific purpose, and that as a legal creation is rather malleable (as has been shown by its constant extension...). /.ers should realize this, especially as it is being extended further and further by things like the DMCA.
There are two basic problems. One, as it becomes more ingrained and gathers more powerful interests behind it, copyright begins to seem a natural moral concept (not an economic incentive). This means that the idea of banning devices which could facilitate copyright violations becomes more palatable. Two, as the technology changes, violating copyright law becomes easier and easier.
All this really means is that it will be extremely difficult to maintain the status quo, and that's what we're seeing: large forces attempting to extend the reach of copyright so that it becomes totally ridiculous, and other forces (perhaps only intending to turn the tide a little, perhaps not) straining to render copyright utterly unenforceable.
A simple "for/against" standpoint doesn't really work anymore, especially since copyright is a legal concept and certain players are able to change the laws in their favour. This is a point that many, including the AC to whom I am replying, appear to miss. Is it 'censorship' to say that you cannot reproduce my work now? In 5 years? In 10? 100? 1000? When does my work (which inevitably drew upon public domain ideas) become part of the public domain? Similarly, is it censorship to say that you can't parody my work? Cite my work? Say bad things about my work? Mention my work?
It's a matter of degree. The key point is not really about copyright 'violations' but rather: what do we want copyright to be? What is the best middle ground between encouraging creativity and encouraging a free and open exchange of ideas? And how do we get there?