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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.
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.
--
+&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?