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Sought for MGM v. Grokster: Non-Infringing P2P Use

Posted by timothy on from the that-lessig-fellow-might-have-some-words dept.

linuxizer writes "Since my last Slashdot entry, I've been discussing various copyright issues with the ever-interesting Peter Fader. Out of those conversations came sniu.info, an attempt to document the various forms of substantial, non-infringing use over peer-to-peer networks before MGM v Grokster goes to the Supreme Court. So far I have about 50 entries, but more suggestions would be much appreciated. Some fellow /. readers might also be interested in my fairly regular posts on copyright/IP issues, which are mostly links to interesting articles with occasional commentary."

5 of 377 comments (clear)

  1. BT has a valid use, for example. by keyne9 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    World of Warcraft by Blizzard utilizes the BitTorrent methods to distribute patches/updates. That's basically rousing support for a peer-to-peer method from a very well known company servicing several hundred thousand users.

  2. Getting around Censorship by GoodNicsTken · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Durring the beginning of the Iraq war, I used P2P to get video and pictures that were censored from the US. The instant I hear about pictures, recordings, etc. on another network they can't show in the US, I go find them on P2P. Along with that search, I also found pictures that solders had taken along the way. Then I found gunship video (de-classified and classified because it had altitude/other readings) showing people walking into a building. The order came, and they leveled the building. Then started firing on anyone leaving the scene. You could actually see the men get thrown around after getting hit with munitions. On, and this video just happened to show one man running into a mosque so he was let go. (sure it wasn't leaked on purpose)

  3. LegalTorrents.com by jhalludel · · Score: 5, Informative

    how about http://www.legaltorrents.com/ URL says it all...

  4. FreeAudio.org .... by Art+Pollard · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I run FreeAudio.org. The goal is to create audiobooks of the most important literary works on liberty and freedom. I regularly share our first work: Frederic Bastiat's classic book "The Law" via LimeWire. The works are intended to be downloaded and shared. (You can even post them on your website as long as the copyright info is kept intact.) Sometime today or tomorrow, I'll be posting our second work: The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass. With both of these works, there is a statement at the beginning encouraging people to share them "via their favorite file sharing service." So, not only is sharing via P2P allowed, it is encouraged. (Add one more to your list.)

  5. Re:Censored? No. by MarkusQ · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Ummm. there were no video/picture that were "censored from the US".

    Except for the more graphic images of US military personel torturing foreigners. And killing them during "questioning." And the bodies of US service men coming home. And who knows what else, because when stuff is being censored you don't necessarily know it.

    Remember, this is the country that routinely dropped colour from video taken "behind the iron curtain", leaving the impression that everything there was black-and-white. The country that loudly objected to the development of biological weapons anywhere, by anyone, until some of our congress critters got mailed samples of weaponized anthrax we had made in our biological weapons labs. Oops.

    Our legislators pass laws without reading them, in some cases without being allowed to read them and/or discuss them, and we pass laws which average citizens are not allowed to own a copy of.

    If you think there are no images censored from the US, you are nuts.

    --MarkusQ