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Senator Plans P2P Summit
ClickTheVote writes "Last fall Senator Norm Coleman held hearings on the RIAA subpoena process, now he is going to convene a P2P Summit. At CES last week he said, 'With the advent of technology such as peer-to-peer networking, law, technology and ethics are now not in synch. We need to find other ways to solve the problems rather than issuing lawsuits and lobbying Congress to pass tougher laws.' Here, here."
are finding themselves in favor of more regulations. Whatever happened to letting the market decide?
Where ethics, law, and technology ever in synch to begin with? I always see people using technology unethically to break the law. I see the law using technology unethically. I see ethics and laws going right out the window with spam technology. Paper, Rock, Scissors?
Socre? You blew it, man...
Unfortunately, those sharing file by P2P are now considered criminals as bad as virus writers and terrorist. I can't imagine any government (especially in America) coming to any useful conclusion.
Load up your favorite P2P program and do a search for this file!
US SEN NORM COLEMAN P2P DISCUSSION -- SAYS P2P IS GOOD -- MUST READ.txt.exe
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Yes, a Summit will work! Already through the power of talking-about-things we have eliminated AIDS, poverty and global polution! Now we must turn this formidable weapon to bear on copyright theft!
</skeptic>
These sigs are more interesting tha
From the article:
Other bills are aimed at protecting minors who use P2P software to inadvertently download pornographic material, especially child pornography. The bill would, in effect, limit the availability of P2P software in the process.
I feel better knowing that Sen. Coleman understands who uses P2P and why.
I think you mean "Hear, hear!", not "Here, here!"
Where?
"/Dread"
Yes...and...
"I believe we need the technology experts, the computer industry, the peer-to-peer industry, the software industry, the entertainment industry, the privacy experts and the business experts to come together and discuss positive and meaningful solutions to this challenge facing a major segment of our economy," said Coleman.
Finally, someone who is on the right track, thinking rationally. It is important to have matter-of-fact, and hopefully civilized discussion with all the parties involved in this manner. My belief is the only way you'll find the answers to protecting copyrighted material is to involve everyone from the techies to the entertainment industry to privacy experts and everyone in between. You are not going to find answers by writing one-sided laws and suing 6th graders and pensioners.
I'm not sure what's going to come out of a meeting like this. My pessimistic side is afraid it's going to end up being more for show than anything. Lip service galore. But we'll see...
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
So admitting that the system can't deal with this new development certain people need to decide a few things. Too bad these certain people are so molded by the system that they basically are the system. Plus you will never convince me a Senator fully understands technology.
Might as well ask Bush for vocabulary help.
vampirical
Not that we care nor memorise them all.
All they do is keep lawyers in jobs.
We need less laws not more.
Whats wrong with just getting on with youre lives.
The day they treat companies as a living entity is the day it all went wrong. Its not a living entitiy, never will be. Its a company. Not life.
Hmmm, so he is started lookin into the matter yes. What if he doesnt really care what happens ( when the RIAA is sueing all our asses ) after he is all settled in, thanks to file sharers votes.
It's very interesting how this might turn out. Will they be anti-P2P, or anti-RIAA (not saying the two are exclusive or anything)?
:)
As we all pretty much accept here on Echodot, computer copyright law is really out of wack with other copyright law. Computers, being relatively new and increasing in use fast, have been treated differently than earlier, normal copyright laws, for example, you can lend someone a book, but you (as many EULAs say) you cannot have a game installed on two computers, even if the game requires a CD to play. If such a book came with an User Agreement, would courts allow it?
In any case, something must be done. We haven't seen anything really like computers before. There has been nothing so flexible that allows you to share information so easily. I think the laws should change, NOT computers.
Of course, this begs the question on HOW the laws will change. One obvious answer is to do away with the whole copyrighted works system, but is that really what we want (and need)?
In summary, the current copyright laws (not the DMCA, it is argued it conflicts with "fair use", I'm inclined to agree) just weren't designed for anything like computers and the internet.
Heh, or else I have no idea what I'm talking about and just whoring for karma.
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
At least they've realized that suing individulas who have downloaded an mp3 is a bad idea. That's not the way to stop people, Its a way to motivate them to find other ways to get it. I think its a noble effort to bring all these areas of technology together to save the poor, failing entertainment industry...but I don't think it will actually accomplish much.
"Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the life-long attempt to acquire it." -Albert Einstein
It's also important to note that, if a solution is made through this (if one comes around), who will it benefit? Corporations? Everyone equally? Take a WILD guess which one I'm betting on.
---
Never criticize religion on Slashdot. You will be modded down for "Troll" no matter how factual it is.
I wasn't aware there was anything wrong with P2P networks. They aren't illegal and it's an efficient data distribution system that takes loads off of servers.
I think the true intent of "synching law, technology, and ethics" is to gain control. They will be able to monitor you more easily and control what is served.
My oh my! We may not have found intelligent life on the moon, but maybe there's a sign of it on earth...
*--BigMan--- Time flies like an arrow.. but personally I prefer a nice glass of wine!
So has anyone here ever used a p2p app *legally*?
... no ...
This is a typical conversation:
Friend: Damn those RIAA, suing filesharers! P2P can be used legally too y'know!
Me: Have you ever used it legally?
Friend:
Friend: but that's not the point!
I have yet to hear a good reason for not just banning p2p outright - I'm for the technology and all, it's just I have yet to meet someone who uses it legally...
From the article, it would seem that Congress sees two problems with P2P:
1. "Illegal" distribution of copyrighted material
2. Exposure of children to pornographic materials
At this point it would behoove the P2P community to do soemthing to forestall Draconian legislation that destroys P2P. I see four options, but only 2 effective options:
1. Argue that these two "problems" don't happen (not going to work)
2. Argue that these two "problems" aren't wrong (not going to work)
3. Fix these problems themselves (probably what Congress wants)
4. Articulating the benefits of P2P (may help delay regulation while working on option 3)
Any other ideas out there?
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
Before DRM, it was a fuzzy matter. Once, having an MP3 on your computer and giving it to a friend. But as P2P rose in popularity, and CD writers got cheaper, it has spread. Now with DRM, in some cases you have to actively circumvent the copyright protection to make the MP3. This makes it seem more criminal. I think the introduction of DRM will not help the P2P case in any official discussions. Perhaps one day we will see a world where music loses it's copyright after 6months - 1 year, and can be freely distributed. They can't be making much out of the bargain value CDs the companies like Amazon, HMV and Virgin sell after the CD has been out a while.
I'm not sure if this is good or not. Whilst the gentleman is correct (and his heart is in the right place) in believing that draconian laws won't stop the real offenders, the only other solutions are moral measures which hasn't worked in the past either (with the notable exclusion of the music stores) or technological restrictions.
There are only two results I can see out of this :
- ISP's will be asked to prevent the transmission of copyrighted material or
- The consumer internet can easily be replaced with a new set of protocols that monitors the transmission of such material. ISP's will be legislated to implement these new protocols for all consumers. Actually not as hard to do as it may sound.
I think I would stick with the draconian laws.
" I think you mean "Hear, hear!", not "Here, here!""
:)
...furthermore, I think you have too much time on your hands, which, unfortunately, doesn't look good for me since I not only know about your post, but am replying to it.
He was calling attention to his post.
(imagine him pointing down at the page while exclaiming, "Here, here!")
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
Oh, dear... Adjust the law then! It's not hard to figure it out, right?
On the other hand: is Linux legal anyway ! No say SCO so maybe I've just shot down my own answer.
Of course, people have always been breaching copyright. P2P just makes it a lot easier.
For example, have you ever kept something taped from TV for longer than is strictly neccesary? copied a tape for a friend? Used an illigitmate piece of software? Not everyone has, but many people have. Most people don't even see anything wrong with this. And it's always been tolerated to an extent. However P2P allows a lot more copies to be made, and allows a single copy to spread a lot further than it could when it was only friend copying from each other.
Now, the solution is not to try to terrorise the people who use P2P. All they want to do is share what they have. They can do it, and will do it. It is going to be impossible to convince them that this is wrong. What we need to do is reach some sort of compromise. Right now we're nowhere near. The media cartels wnat absolute control over all aspects of all aspects of distribution. The public want to be able to get everything they can without paying for it. Neither of these options are viable, so we need some middle ground. Some way of tolerating a certain amount of copyright infringement that is acceptable to most people.
Any suggestions?
I did notice this and I was going to mention it but decided not to. I was afraid I was going to be asked what I'm about to ask you. How will you do it? Who are you going to pick as the p2p users representatives? What will be the criteria? Or will any p2p user be allowed to attend, as long as there are enough seats?
Is there a p2p user interest organization in existence?
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
take too lightly.
Being an inventor I can tell you most innovations are scrapped well before the patent process because of the overwhelming ease of theft. Those who disregard intellectual property force losses for everyone.
Consider this as you are listening to the music you downloaded for 'free'. It took someone time to dream up and lay down those tracks. There was an investment of effort into the process few even want to consider as they pose the 'cost' arguments. Finally we have the last step, facilitating future development.
As the process considers the looser are those who would like to enter the free market because it is more and more likely their efforts will not produce a return.
The distinction, in regards to those of us who believe in intellectual property, is that the petty side of "it costs too much" argument is a waste of effort for those who espouse such thing are usually the same individuals who "know what your thinking."
PS, if you really want to know what is happening in intellectual property read patents. Look at the patents in the one million range, then jump forward to those in the current almost seven million range. You will likely see a difference. Now ask your self, did you benefit by the change?
Isn't it spelled 'sync' and not 'synch'?
I always thought that
sync = sink
synch = sinch
Many people have used it to download porn, most porn is legal. Then you also have linux distro's, patches that take a heavy beating (CS, DesCom). There is also a reasonbly large gaming website, which releases everything downloadable (demos, patches, freeware, shareware etc) on both its own servers, and p2p networks.
Score:2 Interesting? How about score: -100 stupid. Through talk we are closer to eliminating these problems than going out and mudering people (i.e. war etc). Get a clue. Summits may seem ineficiant but atleast they aren't killing people.
this will be a great step towards the future: hinder new technologies that allow a better flow of information to people i always thought the consumer made the choices in a free market economy. i was wrong, apparently the government and the RIAA know exactly what we need, and how much we're going to pay for it =/
You raise some very good points, Eivind, the question is, will Congress buy them?
If I play devils-advocate (== Congress' advocate), this is how I would respond to your points, were I a legislative control freak (which I am not).
5: Argue that tools that can, and are infact, be used for both lawful and unlawful purposes should not themselves be illegal.
Good point. But such tools usually have some redeeming quality to them. What can p2p do besides share music files and porn?
6: Argue that general purpose computers is a tool much to useful to society to consider giving them up, or locking them away with the keys in the hands of a elite few, over an issue as trivial as some downloaded music-files.
Very true, but disabling/outlawing p2p does not prevent me from using a computer for running my business, surfing the web, corresponding by email, playing games, etc.
7: Continue to press the point that copyrigth-law is supposed to serve a *purpose*, the creation of science and the useful arts. If it ain't serving this purpose, it's unconstitutional and harmful. Retroactively extending copyrigths for works where the author is 50 years dead does nothing to stimulate science or the useful acts.
As good as this point is, I suspect that this Congressional roundtable will argue that it is out of scope.
8: Continue to point out that the music-cartel is in trouble because they're providing a service noone really needs or wants anymore. Sure, that's putting it a bit on the point, but fact is, neither I as a producer of music, nor I as a consumer have any interest in supporting those things 90% of the cash goes to when I purchase a CD.
Again, a good point but I suspect that Congress will not listen to this arguement and that making this arguement will only alienate the law makers and hasten the advent of nasty regulations.
9: Try to get politicians to understand that not everything which is *disliked* should be *illegal*. The rigth solution to the "problem" of kids looking for porn in p-2-p space and finding it is *gasp* parents who actually give a fuck. (How is p2p worse for youngsters than thehun.net by the way ? Should we shut down the www too ?)
Very true, but can we show Congress that P2P is as useful as the web in areas beside media file sharing and porn?
10: Get an actually democratic system in the US. It used to be every man one vote, these days it's more like every dollar one vote. There's more p2p users in the USA than there are people who voted for Bush....
Now this is a best idea of the bunch. Can the P2P community rally these people to create a strong special interest group? Perhaps we need a "Million File Sharers March" in Washington to show that P2P users are a political force to be reckoned with.
As much as I, personally, agree with your suggestions, I suspect that they will not further the cause of P2P with Congress (with the strong exception of option 10). The challenge for P2P is finding arguments and tactics that work within the flawed system that is Congress.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
This is actually a simple, yet intelligent thing to ask. Don't worry about the negative moderators, they're just not into Hip-Hop cuzz.
P2P. What's it all about? Is it good, or is it whack?
Well. P2P is "good", but it is something that gets "whacked" around quite a bit, from all angles, such as, RIAA Nazis, Client/Servers behind Firewalls, Poison Pills, and especially, old IP technology.
I think alot of the posters here are being short sighted. Let's try to translate or summarize the major point of the article.
Legislation hasn't worked and we need a better avenue.
That is the CRUX of the matter.
The point is that they still believe file sharing is WRONG and are looking for ways beyond legislation to stop it.
What exactly do you think they'll come up with? Magical pellicans that fly down and scoop up your computer if you happen to break the law? Um... no...
What will eventually come from this gathering of experts is mandated and likely uniform DRM architecture / standards that ALL new hardware must incorporate, much like the broadcasting bit you've seen with the digital TV sets.
Why are you rejoicing again?
Is more government oversight of the Internet, including licensure. We have laws, numerous laws, that cover all kinds of common societal tools. There are laws governing how we use cars, airplanes, how we build buildings, and so on. A license is required to do just about anything, and that system works. We have licensure for driving, operating a radio station, an airplane, and for holding professions like electician or even hair stylist.
...
:)
:)
When you attain a license to interact with the public, you demonstrate that you will do so responsibly and not to the detriment of society. If you do, you will lose your license. The time has come to start treating computers the same way. We use computers to interact with society, and therefore we should all be held to a minimum level of competency before we are allowed to do so. Just like a driver's license, if we break the law, we can get points or lose it altogether. Just like a restaurant has to demonstrate that they will act in a manner not to harm the public with tainted food to get a foodservice license, webservers would have to demonstrate that they would act in a manner not to harm the public by serving porn to kids and so on.
The technology already exists to support licensure of computer use. Smart cards would make this easy - just stick your license into the slot in order to use the computer. A periodic examination could be required to maintain proficiency and to renew our commitment to maintaining a safe and pleasurable Internet.
We, as Americans, have got to realize that the government is here for a reason, to make our lives better. More government oversight and regulation has always been the answer to cleaning up indistries that exploit the masses, and it has always worked. Government interventiion has made our environment clean, made our roads safe, made our food supply pure, made flying risk-free, and has generally improved the standard of living for everyone.
Regulating the use of computers just like any other licensed activity will undoubtedly fix all the problems that exist on the Internet today...
Oh crap, did I forget my sarcasm metatags? No wait, should have been troll hehe...
Let's just see who knee-jerk replies before reading down this far
My karma can afford it
Truly did treat companies like living entities. We have a lot less respect for living entities. Then we could lock away or execute companies.
If the RIAA section of the recording industry was really being forced into a corner and there was a clear enemy rather than a disparate group of separate interests, commercial forces would push things to the negotiating table.
In the cases of AIDS, poverty and global pollution, the First World is not being forced into negotiation by the Third World because the Third World has so little power. Not surprisingly, activism, political activity and the threat of terrorism achieve more than talking-about-things. Sad but true.
Panurge has posted for the last time. Thanks for the positive moderations.
Most people are wrong in when they hear P2P, they think filesharing. A lot of games use P2P techniques to reduce latency. ......
If every packet has to go through the server, you double the latency.
Although I usually do not respond to AC posts, this one is very good. There are other insanely useful applications of P2P. IM and VoIP are both obvious potential users of P2P technologies. Skype was even created by Kazaa. If P2P supporters can argue that outlawing P2P is like outlawing the telephone, then maybe Congress will back off or at least craft very narrow legislation that permits many non-problematic uses of P2P.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
The book, realistically speaking, can only be read by a human at a time. The Game on the other hand can be played by all ten of your friends at the same time on their computers because it was installed on each. It's akin to you photocopying the book ten times and handing it to your friends so everyone can read it at the same time.
In my humble opinion the laws are not the issue. What is the issue has more to do with support costs and an understanding of the impact duplication has on the innovators who created what is being duplicated (the moral catch... :-).
Case in point is that he is the head of the permanent subcommittee on investigations - which has done precious little investigating that it ought to be.
Anyway, it's far-fetched to say that a MN Senator is in the pocket of the RIAA - I think it's more likely that he's positioning himself for what he knows will eventually happen - the RIAA/MPAA shit will hit the fan & the senate will need an expert to figure it out. For now, it looks like he deserves the benefit of the doubt from us.
Those who disregard intellectual property force losses for everyone.
Bull.
Finally we have the last step, facilitating future development.
How many dead authors will be facilitating new works while rotting in their graves? Considering that copyright lasts decades after the author's death, you seem to be asserting that this is what will happen. BTW, if that was "finally" why did you continue to make points after that?
who would like to enter the free market
Free market?!? Copyright and patent are interfering with the free market! In a free market there would be no artificially constructed monopolies that prevent any producer from producing any good that said producer can figure out how to produce. As it stands this interference in the free market means that there is no incentive to patent owners to learn make their products more efficiently and pass those savings along to consumers.
The distinction.... thinking."
I've read this sentence three times and I still don't understand one word of it. It is as muddled as your understanding of copyright and patent.
Now ask your self, did you benefit by the change?
Did I? How would I know that? If I were able to perform a scientific study of life quality using patent/non-patent as a controlled variable, then I might be able to answer your question. Using less empirical methods, I conclude that no amount of patents or copyrights have made my life better. Most of the copyrightable works that I've produced have been produced as an employee of a company, so I don't even hold the copyright to my own work. Most of the important things in my life are not affected by copyright or patent at all-- although soon it may be nearly impossible to buy FOOD that isn't patented. But that brings up a good point regarding the "objective morality" of patents. If a biotech firm make a disease resistant, drought resistant tomato and I buy one and plant the seeds, I am infringing their patent (as I understand it I would be using patented "technology" without a license). I'm sorry, but I refuse to accept the validity of any moral or legal code that would prevent me from growing my own food in a manner that humans have practiced for thousands and thousands of years.
I do not have a signature
isos of Linux distros are commonly downloaded off bittorrent. I am sure we will get more user generated content such as machinima on bittorrent and the like. Also p2p might make an efficient distribution scheme for large files that people want to give away such as game demos and movie trailers.
"Hear what?" they all said turning suddenly towards him, and he was so flustered that he answered "Hear what I have got to say!"
quod licet Jovi, non licet bovi
Amit szabad Jupiternek, nem szabad a kisokornek.
Sweet lord help us if this winds up as yet another word-play argument. I mean, jeez, were we all given a limited and fixed set of words and meanings, never to change?
In any case, the fact reamains that "the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted material" remains illegal.
All the dreamy talk of solutions takes great care to avoid dealing with the very ugly practical problems...
1) Will artists have a choice about whether to particiapte in the government-controlled art system?
2) Will the government-controlled art system exclude works that it deems offensive?
3) Do you want a government-controlled art system keeping track of how you use the Internet.
The list goes on and on, but the point is: before you decide that you like some alternative, first get to know the practical details, and only then decide.
I've written some more about here.
Here's what I do: Bitty Browser & Andromeda
Sorry if I sound like a troll.
Maybe I seem a bit irrational in this case, buy I can assure your, it's because of close ties with the PW campaign.
MPA / RIAA are trying all sorts of approaches.
From Two-Fisted, to Pragmatic. They've got the resources to come at us from all side.
Yes it's true, the only way to enforce copyright law is through propaganda. Copyright, unlike all of those other things, depends on individual self restraint and respect for authors and publishers. It would be wonderful indeed if we could simply convince people not to be poor or die of AIDS and convince the air to be clean. Hell, propaganda could bring world peeace if only words could multiply the resources that people fight over. The dependence of copyright law on propaganda is even greater as the ease of publication grows in the digital age. People must be convinced that copyright laws are just in order for copyright to work.
The US is one place that should know this is true. Ben Franklin and many other Americans thought English copyright laws were unreasonable and violated them wholsale. For a hundred and fifty years after US judges and citezens scoffed at paying tribute to forgien governments and authors for ideas, songs and other inspiration.
Today it is US copyright laws that are out of wack. The imbalance is not in the technology, it's in 100 year copyrights that are essentially perpetual and the power of big publishers to prevail on US public opinion. The word's five big music publishers, three big broadcasters and one big press organization are losing their governemnt granted control of mass media to the internet. While they can buy biger and dumber copyright laws and have restrained broadband adoption, they are having a hard time convincing people they are right about things. I'm afraid this Summit will recomend more stupid limits on technology and attempt to justify them with people's failure to be convinced that copyright laws are ethical, just or reasonable.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Here in the states we curn out a ton of content every day. More than any other country in the world, and while I'm just guessing on that I'm quite sure it's true.
So, we have this mass of content that everyone has been copywriting since late night talk show hosts have been making fun of MLB. Add to that we then invent this "internet" thing an then start to build a bunch of powerful computers to use on/with it.
Now, consider the goverment. Lumbering, slow, never in touch. The 1st Bush's comment about how he was suprised at how checkout lines in the 90's had laser UPC scanners comes to mind.
So, as many of us here know that computers move fast and the buissness of computers moves even faster we have a fast moving object meeting a very large slow lumbering object. One wonders at how we have made it this far. (And taken in that contect it's easy to see how an object like MS can move much faster than the goverment can ever catch, especially when they don't want to.)
Finally, add in the buildup of the internet such that now end users can have bandwidth that easily can do many may things, well...wow. You know I'm not really jealous of Europe and their adaption of even faster bandwidth right now. At this point I think the goverment needs to catch up so badly that if we were do do any sort of major push on tech right now we would all just go crazy.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
Or rather economics. Nowhere in the article is a very important, but often overlooked issue to be found: Economics.
;-)
Our whole economic system is based on one simple assumption: The scarcity of goods. As long as a good is scarce, ie. not abundant, it has a value for which the market creates a price. Clean air is (still) abundant so we don't have to pay for it. Cars are scarce (hmmm...) and so a price can derived from the mechanics of demand and supply.
Music, films, software, basically everything digital lacks scarcity, because as soon as a medium, a product or information enters the digital realm it is accessible through digital technology, mostly without loss of quality and/or features. It becomes abundant in the digital world and we will have trouble fixing a price for a good that is as available as breathable air (still is).
How do you fix this? You can't. You could create artificial scarcity through DRM features, which would not work because DRM-less alternatives will most probably be readily available. And even if they weren't, people will have a problem accepting a price that they view as too high, given the fact that they once had the good for free with more features (copyable, modifiable, transportable, usable etc.).
How do artist make money if their goods are so easily accessible? Create scarcity again, but avoiding DRM: The distributable good (a CD, DVD, what have you) would still be offered to the market at low or no price at all, becoming a teaser for the real product: live events. These are not so easily reproduceable without loss of quality (I consider bootleg recordings not to be of the same quality and if you have listened to one, you will probably agree that, while being interesting, it is not the Real Thing) and will most likely be different from venue to venue (one of the reasons many fans travelled with Frank Zappa or the Grateful Dead when they were on tour).
There are catches though: Bands and artists would have to be able to perform life on stage and no one would need the RIAA. So we should all expect more of the same. Round tables and talks will not yield any useful outcomes, the best they can achieve is more public awareness of the problem and maybe speed up the downfall of an industry destined to die (as long as they don't come up with a new and decent business model), albeit slowly and still with enough turnover and profit to make our lives and Slashdot discussions interesting.
Just my 2 Cents (and that's all they'll get)
I feel so sig.
BT is also an excelent too for (legal) gaming-related material (demos, videos, patches).
Check GameTab.
[]s Badaro
My sig became obsolete, and I lack the imagination to create a new one.
> Amit szabad Jupiternek, nem szabad a kisokornek.
:)
Is that hungarian? Whatever it is, I like it. In fact, I might just steal it anyway, with your permission.
Is it stealing, if I have permission? There, that's almost back on-topic...
These sigs are more interesting tha
No, he said even if the game requires a CD to play, which means the game cannot be played by your friends unless you lend them the CD.
"We need to find other ways to solve the problems rather than issuing lawsuits and lobbying Congress to pass tougher laws."
What, is this guy some kind of Communist or something? Lawsuits and lobbying are right up there with baseball and apple pie...
With the coming improvement to GPRS and 1x wireless data, we are going to see even more avenues for P2P downloading to take place. I work with 1x interfaces for a large wireless company, and I can safely say, our company does not have the time, manpower, or money to police P2P and RIAA demands. Hell, we hardly have time to troubleshoot our own customers!!!
Its pretty clear the only conclusion this "summit" will come to is that computers need to be regulated, the same way we regulate cars.
Only moreso!
Microsoft will point out Palladium will solve these problems, and that if the government would mandate Palladium, then these problems would all but disappear.
And no, I don't think I'm being too cynical at all. In fact, I think my scenario is likely.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
" have yet to hear a good reason for not just banning p2p outright"
Because it would outlaw NFS and Samba shares?
We're going to outlaw an entire branch of computing simply because of record companies and movies studios?
Crazy world we live in.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I will not use your P2P
:)
I will not use it, can't you see?
I will not use it in my house
Don't infringe on Mickey Mouse!
I download only legal things you know
like the latest Linux ISO.
Or is it illegal and SCO's?
I've tried them movies from the MPAA
I've heard the crap from the RIAA.
I will not use your P2P
I do not like the poor quality.
This is how I'm 'sposed to use
this P2P that lets you choose,
anything from A to Z, like
Lara Croft, Paris and Britney.
So if you take one thing from this
learn that Congress don't give a rip,
about your rights
to distributions
they only want their contributions!
Just remember, you'll be viewed
as a criminal if you even use
this amazing thing called P2P.
The RIAA will sue your Mom,
The MPAA will soon be 'long
Wait I hear a knock - so loud!
It's the BSA come to trash my house!
Well it's been fun, I have to go
Remember kids, spend your dough!
on movies and music and wares of soft
you can do all three with Lara Croft!
One more thing before I go,
it's never for the children - it's for the IPO!
*Please feel free to P2P this*
" It is going to be impossible to convince them that this is wrong."
Primarily because it isn't wrong.
Look. People make a pretty clear distinctions between giving and selling. If I give something to someone, I can't be stealing by giving. You can tell me why that isn't so, but its an intellectual exercise. It doesn't resonate with people. How can I steal by giving?
Doesn't make sense.
The flip side is the music companies, since there were music companies, have always yearned for a pay-per-listen system. If they could find a way to stick a music-meter over your ears to make everything pay-per-listen, they would. They really believe they control every aspect about songs they produce.
This is turning into an abortion debate. The two camps are now stuck in opposite extremes and I don't think there is a compromise. More and more laws will be passed to "protect" the RIAA, and people will figure a way around those laws.
The circle continues, but it escalates over time. I don't see an end to this, because this battle has been going on for at least 100 years.
At least SCO only charges $699 per seat vs RIAA's ga'zillion protection money ^w ^w "license fee"^w settlements.
How can a us-congress decision inflict wordlwide changes of the internet?
Just asking... I sort of lived in a dreamworld where the world was (alot) more than merely the US...
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
The issue here is that the record companies etc are under threat because their business model is to be made redundant, why shouldnt it? its evolution, if there are no record companies, there is no middle-man for artists and listeners to go through, artists can do the job themselves and you go from a system where fame is manufactured to one where the artists that people like get the popularity they deserve by natural selection. And if the artists are pissed because they wont get _as_much_ money, that just goes to show that money is all they are after, should we really be supporting them? should we be suffering DRM and restrictions to our freedom because some assholes want a bigger jet?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
The second Bush had something very interesting to say about the internet. Something about kids stuck in dungeons...
Does that monkey lack intelligence, knowledge or both?
Not Buzzword 2.0 compliant. Please speak english.
and remember, the Government is ALWAYS stupid, and business is ALWAYS smarter.
Therefore the Government should butt out, and let business, the industry, and the marketplace decide the fate of peer2peer.
Let's see, the business parties expressing the most interest in this topic are the RIAA and MPAA. Let's leave it up to them.
yeah, it's a saying in Hungarian that's equivalent with your sig, but actually common in the vernacular. (In English nobody spouts your Latin version). Feel free to use it.
["quod licet jovi" occurs 323 times on any English-language page, compared with 280 results for "amit szabad jupiternek". But there are several orders of magnitude more English-language pages online than Hungarian! This makes the expression about a thousand times more frequent in Hungarian than in English, because it is that much more catchy. To give you a sense of perspective re those 280 results, compare the Hungarian word for Swahili -- a language I took in college -- which occurs on only 2300 pages on the entire World Wide Web.]
I would have to argue that P2P software architechtures offer the possibility of being able to truly realize the promise of the internet, when when one part or piece goes down (due to war, natural calamity, political repression, mechanical failure, etc.) the slack can be picked up by the other peers and nodes in the network. Admittedly I'm presuming a Freenet-type network, but I can think of other architectures that this also applies to.
The internet is all about many-to-many communication of ideas. Older business models that relied upon central control of information in order to "broadcast" that information. Tradional media such as newspapers, radio, television require huge amounts of capital (resources, large buildings to house staff and equipment, experienced technicians who are highly specialized to get the equipment to work) in order to start spreading content around.
Traditional web sites do substantially lower the traditional cost of entry, but even here the cost required to maintain a truly large website (like even Slashdot) still require professional full-time staff and a fairly healthy physical infrastructure. The Slashdot Effect is an example of what limited resource have on even fairly well developed websites with decent network connections.
The point here is that this is more an issue of control rather than an issue of specific content. With a good secure P2P system (full encryption between nodes, nearly untraceable (i.e. psuedo random) links between nodes to fetch the data, things like an FBI warrent or a cease and desist court order has practically no meaning, much less little effect to control the information.
Copyright is again a legal contruction, and it is precisely this many-to-many issue that is the problem Mr. Coleman is trying to grok. P2P networks are now large enough that non-technical people are being pushed into trying to resolve the issues that this sort of philosophy raises.
In writing this post, I guess that is the final point. We are talking philosophical views on how technology should be used. Mr. Wm. Gates talks about "software technologies" when in fact what is being done is a shift in ideas and thoughts on how existing technology can be used. General purpose finite state stored memory machines (i.e. computers) offer an incredible flexibility so that many different philosophies can be used for the exact piece of equipment. This is software. This can also be termed political viewpoints as well (including political such as political party).
Controlling any use of P2P organizations is controlling speech. The fundimental issue is then "Should speech be controlled and some forms of speech made illegal?" That is also what
ha, ha, lame.
The problem is that some people really do think like that. Your time would be better spent thinking of short concise statements that they can understand than jerking people here around.
Here are some starters:
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I have said it before, but it bears repeating... if you build better P2P software a lot of the problems will go away. Not all, but a lot.
Right now it is hard to classify information well in a P2P network, so most of what is shared is that sort of information that is most easily described. That is to say, "Hot chix doin nasty stuff" or "Latest bubblegum pop song". It's a bit harder to share something that people are going to look for using more obscure criteria. What we really need is a few ways to insert catagorical info and then a web site like google that indexes all of this junk in meaningful ways. The search engine could even mask out certain objects which have been determined to be illegal, which is fairly trivial with a decent classification system.
The solution is to build a better tool and get EVERYONE using it... copyright violations won't stop, but they will cease to be the REASON people use it, and that means that casusal users won't help the violations.
it's "hear, hear"... NOT "here, here"...
This is a good thing. If filesharing becomes tolerated by govt there would be less money in the music industry and more people making music because they enjoy it rather than for the money. IMO there is far too much bad music at the moment, and im pretty sure a lot of it would disappear if there was less money in the industry.
US broadband adoption is behind many other less afluent countries. Korea, Japan and others make the US look pathetic. Even the UK is getting a leg up on the US. The wires are here, the money is here, the only reason broadband is not here is due to stupid laws created by big dumb companies that have yet to figure out how to own the internet.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
In any case laws governing the algorithms and communication concepts that programmers can or cannot use when designing some software would be virtually unenforcable wouldnt they? especially when there is no clear legal concensus on what actually constitutes a 'p2p' network.
P2P started as a centrally managed network, Napster.
Companies attacked the central network management, P2P mutated into something that works decentrally, Gnutella.
Companies tried to poison P2P networks with damaged or crippled content. P2P mutated into something that managed checksums on files, and parts of files, inventing swarm loading on the way. Enter eDonkey and Bittorrent.
Companies are trying to identify uploaders by IP, and are trying to force the ISP to keep tabs on the content that customers are downloading or uploading. P2P will mutate into encrypting and MIXing anonymizing service, completly masking uploaders and downloaders, and completely distributing file storage (files will be stored in encrypted chunks of equal size on many servers, so that it will not be possible to tell which content is stored on which server even if you seize the servers hdd).
In such a scenario, in order to control P2P distribution of files, you'd have to completely prohibit peer to peer (mediatorless) communications. "Two nodes in the network may not communicate with each other at any time unless a trusted transaction supervisor listens in into the unencrypted communication between these two nodes checking them for the absence of copyright violations and inappropriate content violations."
Incidentally, this is exactly the type of application that is enabled with NGSCB (That is, NGSCB is necessary in order to write such an application. I don't claim that NGSCB is such an application).
Kristian
The free market is that of IDEAS, something which holds far more value then the monetary pittance once can achieve by giving detailed information of it to the world. Jefferson's idea was simple, really, society grows by granting the innovators protection, monopoly. America proved this point many times over.
Copyright and patents have expirations, hence your dead argument looses meaning when one considers that an incentive to "kill" the creator is quite high as a means of turning over their work to public domain? Granted, Mickey Mouse was recently the catalyst for change... something I personally question the logic behind but then again Disney was able to line a whole lot of pockets...
I could have written it as such:
Would that have made it clearer? In essence the paragraph is broken into parts and I neglected to place proper punctuation depicting the listing of sub points. It's far from proper grammar, something I am simply not capable of performing, but generally when one quasi lists out points in paragraph they can employ "lastly" or "finally"... :-) How was that for a line of BS? I do try...
Really, I extended the comment because I thought it needed qualification and did not double back to remove the statement...
My statment: The distinction, in regards to those of us who believe in intellectual property, is that the petty side of "it costs too much" argument is a waste of effort for those who espouse such thing are usually the same individuals who "know what your thinking." was intended to drive home a point about the logic people employ to make their point.
Example, when people bash political figures, they will often say "I know what X is thinking" when in reality there is little way of ever knowing what any human is thinking, regardless of one's insight into their personality. A reasonable alternative would be to say "I suspect X is thinking" or something to that effect.
In essence the attitude is elitist, knowing something that is not possible to be known.
Extrapolating the concept, if one does not create and have to live off of one's creations they have little to no idea of what it takes. It's like saying ball player X gets "paid to much"... of course the ignorance of all the hours dedicated to the game is lost on the individual who generates such comments.
The underlying tonality in the argument is simple, some want something for nothing and that's my point. Sometimes I wonder if it is a belief some hold about "deserve" it, free stuff that is. Like it's some form of "Right" to take because they can lazily do so (IE one rarely photo copies a novel because it's "not worth the time" but ripping a song off the latest Metallic CD, now that's as simple as point and click.
I believe you missed the point. I'll elaborate, I am saying to READ the patents then decide if you understand the nature of the inventions and who was creating these innovations. The conclusion I am firmly believing you will find if you put reasonable effort, read a few, into the experiment is the cost patenting has skyrocketed hence many of the kick around ideas, innovations, are lost, hence knowledge never to be transferred to
What if I'm not Christian? What if my religion mandates stricter control over the movie scenes? What if my religion is accepting and unshameful of explicit sexual content? What if my philosophy towards life is to show my children an uncensored view of the world? What if I consider the slaughtering of cows more offensive than a pornography video? I think you begin to see the problem.
So, as you can see, establishing a blanket policy on "SFC" and "NSFC" is a very prickly process. Enforcing it as you would suggest is -- if I may say so -- unconstitutional.
I don't mean to be overly critical of you, after all I do agree with you on some points. I am a Muslim so my religious values are probably just as firm or more so than yours, but I am merely stating the facts. Although I would admit that the U.S. is not truly a non-religious country, it still claims to be one in federal and state law. And unless we change our philosophy there we can't really effect anything as strict as what you would suggest.
Besides, have you seen the stuff they show on cable TV? It's not like they'd miss out on anything.
Assuming the copy protection was that effective, yah, and then the actual code that makes the game work is being replicated and remains on more then one desktop at the same time, hence is duplicated. IE the friends do not have to read the duplicated book at the same time, they do have a copy available to them sitting on their desk, no?
How about this, its not the actual experience it is the "physical" existence of it, on the computers hard drive that is copyrighted.
I certainly wouldn't be suprised if Coleman was in the RIAA's pocket, but I haven't seen a whole lot of evidence of that thus far. Anyway, best to be cautious
Wellstone was murdered, that much is reasonable. (Not bad weather; not a bad plane; pilots had criminal backgrounds; plane burning on the way down; plane burned to a crisp -- I smell a rat.)
... or "by Bush" for that matter. Those guys benefitted from Wellstone's death, sure -- but they're not the power players.
But not murdered "by Coleman"
Coleman may be a two-faced hypocritical spins-like-a-weathervane goody-goody suck-up yes man -- for starters -- but he's not a murderous power broker. I doubt if anyone with real power would trust Coleman with real power.
The real Power -- the one that assassinates Senators (and President Kennedy, for that matter) -- resides outside government: secret coalitions of tycoons and spooks and mobsters.
-kgj
-kgj
and more importantly:
what the hell does it mean?
Are you serious, the plane crash was about 10 days before the election, which if I remember is in november. November + Minnesota = winter and snow. It was snowing that day, not much but still. We (minnesotans) all think it was Cheney's EMP that one of his companys had developed.
it means the same thing.
I envision the "Final Solution" for combating piracy on peer to peer networks to be some sort of covert government agency that actively fights a war against such networks. Some handpicked group that creates worms and viruses that target materials that violate copyright law on such networks. Obviously this is illegal but many things the government does quite frequently are.
This overt attack on piracy would be the next step in the arms race of filesharing. Previous attempts to impact piracy by making fake content available have had little impact on the overall problems.
I have downloaded music, copyright infringment, i know, but i also have over 400 cds, most of which i've bought since i started downloading, so i dont feel guilty about that at all. I also have several hundred gigs of tv shows i've downloaded. Not sure about this, they are copyrighted, but noone raised a stink about that yet, and it not like its something that has to be payed for in the first place. And anyway i buy what i download on dvd when avalible, farscape, firefly, stargate, simpsons, family guy, south park, futurama etc.
"Sic Semper Tyrannosaurus Rex."
Yes, a Summit will work! Already through the power of talking-about-things we have eliminated AIDS, poverty and global polution! Now we must turn this formidable weapon to bear on copyright theft!
I would guess that several summits/meetings were held before the WHO's plan to wipe out smallpox, which was a success (unless you want to count private stockpiles).
AIDS is a lot harder, but Polio is being wiped out as we speak, and should be gone as an infectious disease 'in the wild' in a few years. [Thanks, in part, to Bill Gates. Yep, that Bill Gates.]
While summits haven't eliminated global polution, they have attempted to remedy the problem. Unfortunately, with 200 sovereign nations (give or take a few), its nearly impossible to impose regulations globally, and pollution can be a global problem.
Its called slashdot.
There's a growing sense that even if The Future comes,
most of us won't be able to afford it.
-- Lemmy
Most of us who actually live in Minnesota know that late October, no matter what the almanac says, is definitely not summer. In fact, with a average high/low of 46/29, I would be tempted to call it winter, except that winter here doesn't start until it's negative (on the F scale :-)
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
I concede it actually was more towards winter, but not quite winter.
Nonetheless, this strengthens the argument. Mid/Late summer is often a bad time to fly in the afternoon in Minnesota. T-Storms and Tornado's are common. Fall is fairly tame in comparison.
Some say its gotten much worse during the past decade due to massive irrigation in the Nation's breadbasket.
I didn't even want to go there. Picking out clueless quotes from that guy would be like shooting fish in a barrel.
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
The basic unit of current copyright law is a copy, because when copyright was created, there were no automated information manipulation machines, so nobody had a use for multiple copies of a book. But now, to allow computers to function, copyright law has some (but not quite enough) explicit exceptions - for copying programs into RAM, for personal use of some music, and for fair use; and it has some implicit exceptions, like for viewing or caching a webpage. This is outdated.
The fundamental unit should be "person with access to the information." In other words, copyright would be the exclusive right to grant others access to the information. This actually wouldn't change anything in practice, but it would eliminate the need to have a seperate legislative battle to allow each new technology. The laws would be simpler, tools, being neutral, would never be banned, and fair use would be implicit.
Litigious bastards
And that's why copyright legislation needs to be revised. In my case, I have violated EULA's several times in this regard. I have games installed in my desktop at home, but I also install them in my notebook, to play when I'm travelling. IMHO, this is "fair use" and should not be a copyright violation, but EULA's do not allow it.
I realized that just as I hit the submit button so I sent another, corrected version but it looks like CowboyNeal moved my first attempt. c'est la vie.
> The Minnesota Republican said the answers to protecting copyrighted material are more likely to be found through technological innovation rather than passage of more laws.
Actually, it's not likely to be found through technological innovation either.
Here's why:
Most people think that P2P is built on the Internet. But they're wrong -- it's actually the other way around: the Internet is really built on P2P. TCP/IP is a P2P protocol. This means that P2P literally is the Internet. All of it.
It's important to understand that this is a cultural war, first and foremost. It's true that some of the battles are fought in the technology arena, and some are fought in the legal arena, but the overall war itself is primarily cultural.
This war has exactly one cause: the fact that most people don't care about respecting the IP rights of large media corporations, and nothing can ever be done to make them care.
This is truly an old-school class struggle -- it's the media business owners versus "the people". Technology has never been decisive in winning any class struggle. Class struggles are won through organization. And, for the first time in history, "the people" have an easy way to build the organizations they need to win -- with the Internet.
History tells us that the people always win in the end.
Coleman is nothing more than a yes man for the white house. He sure as hell hasn't done much to improve the quaility of life for Minnesotans..
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
Thank you for wasting a lot of my time and then calling me utterly ignorant and intellectually bankrupt. I appreciate that.
I do not have a signature
Frankly, I'd have the kid just plain masturbate once a day before getting on the Internet. She wants to get a Playboy subscription for him or something without additional commercial offerings associated with sex, great. The idea is to not have a horny 15-year-old being confronted with an option of getting sexual material by dropping $20.
Also, I would hope that said mother isn't hassling him about having porn or masturbating. Hell of a throwback to Victorian times, when Freud realized that, gee, sexual repression does really awful things to people.
May we never see th
...but there are many levels of controls between anarchy and totalitarianism. Democracy for one. There are (mostly) reasonable control mechanisms, governed by checks and balances such as courts and warrants for most other forms of communication, such as mail or telephone. You can not expect P2P networks to be exempted from any and all control.
Ethics and law deal with much the same thing, what is right and what is wrong - hopefully, but not always being the same as what is legal and illegal. But without control, how can you do anything about what is either wrong, or illegal, or both? Nothing. Society depends on many levels of controlling unethical behavior, formal as well as informal. Technology is evolving, upsetting this balance.
The thing is, noone has been able to provide a reasonble way to impose control - sufficient, but not excessive. I'm not even convinced there is one. There are two things that make it extremely difficult.
One is due to the temporary nature of data. Either you log it, or it is gone. A traditional investigation, seeking to discover what happened after the fact is mostly pointless. But you wouldn't like it if they logged everything, it would be as if you were being investigated all the time. In real life, that would be considered persecution by the police.
The second is the changing nature of information - this moment it's a kiddie porn image, the next an ASCII text, the next an encrypted file only readable by me. Applying a basic theorem of informatics tells you that for any input, there's a program that'll produce illegal output. In real life, you can't make a frying pan into a kiddie porn vid. But if you could, could you stop people from purchasing frying pans? Trading them? Using them? Or is it only illegal once you transform it in the solitude of your own home? Who'd then know?
What can you do about technology that forces you to choose between black and white - total or no control - when all but a very few agree that gray is the best? Some fall down on one side - the Slashdot side "Information wants to be free". The other fall down on the other side, where the computer is watching you - controlling you. But I would wager to say that none of it is for the good - it is a matter of choosing the lesser evil, because technology has taken the third option away from us.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Very accurate description.
I know it sounds like a personal attack, really, that is not something I am trying to do. I am attacking the idea, something I think everyone should do when they believe and can present a factual reason why. Of course the idea holder sometimes takes it personally... sorry about that but such is in the eye of the beholder and if it works for you, so be it.
The attendees that the Sen. Coleman plans to invite are "the technology experts, the computer industry, the peer-to-peer industry, the software industry, the entertainment industry, the privacy experts and the business experts".
Which of these groups are going to argue for less blocking and IP-control technology? Which of these groups will argue that copyright is broken and that technological restrictions will make it harder or impossible to repeal copyright law?
Will any of these attendees even consider P2P as a fair-use technique? Where are the small bands, academia, librarians, and consumer advocates?
This won't be a summit, it'll be a choir preaching to itself, a kangaroo court, a stacked deck.
Hey, you Minnesota slashdotters, get writing!
i'd hit it so hard, if you pulled me out you'd be the king of britain [bash.org]