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Bittorrent Creator A Digital Pirate?
Alex_Ionescu writes "According to an article in Wired, the old webpage of Bram Cohen contained a manifesto stating that his goal for creating software was to 'Commit Digital Piracy'. Cohen argues that the quote is taken out of context and represents a parody. He argues having written it in 1999, 2 years before even coming up with Bittorrent. You can find the archived copy of his site at archive.org. From the article: "Cohen has never publicly encouraged piracy, and he has consistently maintained that he wrote BitTorrent as a legitimate file-distribution tool. That would seem to make him and his budding company, BitTorrent, safe under the Grokster ruling. But legal experts worry the newly discovered manifesto extolling 'digital piracy' could put him on less certain legal ground."
Cohen said he's unhappy that the Supreme Court's decision is forcing him to confront something he wrote more than five years ago.
"The way they talked about intent is so vague that it can cause people to pay attention to things that they wrote years and years ago, having nothing to do with what they're doing right now," Cohen said.
If the President of the United States, the Governor of California, and various other politicians can hold political office regardless of what they did in their past (I won't even go into the difference between actually *doing* something illegal and just writing about it), then there should be no reason why this should even be a minor concern for Cohen or BitTorrent.
My views since 2002 have changed drastically on numerous subjects including ones I speak about in daily conversation, on Slashdot, and elsewhere. My views in 1999 were even more radically and misguided. I was in my early 20s, in college, and intoxicated (in some form) about 99% of the time. I certainly do not want to be held to what I said then and I certainly don't want to be held to what I say right now 5 years from now. Lots of life changing events occur in a short time now (moving to different areas of the country, encountering new people with different viewpoints, access to more and different information from many different angles).
It disappoints me that this is even an issue at all. If we are going to make a huge deal out this then I really think that we should have taken more time to consider what ass smacking and coke snorting does to our future. Yet, the problem is that people on that level get held to a different standard than the rest of us. Sadly, the levels are exactly the opposite of what they should be.
This really is just more evidence of how careful you have to be about what you post on the Internet. Many of us first started out on the Internet back in college; back when we had the skills to post and code, but lacked the wisdom to self-moderate.
Current Internet younglings, take note. Be prepared to defend everything you ever put on a web page. I still cringe when I read some of the stuff I posted 10 years ago...
Willie
Go ahead, RIAA / MPAA . . . shut down BitTorrent. It doesn't matter, 'cuz in less than a week, a better, more efficient and more anonymous P2P tech will get adopted.
They just don't get it, or are unwilling to concede that they get it -- the genie is out of the bottle, forever.
> his goal for creating software was to 'Commit Digital Piracy'
>(...) written it in 1999
My first thought was "so what".
I said a lot of things 6 years ago that I disagree with today.
What, aren't we allowed to state our opinions anymore without having the fear of being haunted by the past?
www.6502asm.com - Code 6502 assembly or.. DIE!!
And yet, look at the pasts of our political leaders. Look at the pasts of our corporate masters. Look at the reprehensible things which are all shrugged off as "well, those times were different."
[
Sadly, it may not matter when he made the statement, or what his original intention was. All they have to do is go after him; even if they lose, they win. That the mere stigma of accusation itself is damaging may motivate them to go after him to establish to others that even if they can't win in a lawsuit, the MPAA can hurt anyone thinking of building decentralize file distribution systems to discourage future such efforts. I hope I'm wrong.
"We are all geniuses when we dream"
- E.M. Cioran
Be prepared to defend everything you ever put on a web page.
I hope it's also OK to just admit that you were naive and wrong. You are allowed to learn new things in ten years, and change your opinions. At least I would hope so.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
However, there is no evidence that he ever "marketed" Bittorrent as a tool for piracy, and considerable evidence that he has done quite the opposite. This is a non-starter, in terms of the Grokster ruling.
Which is not to say that someone might try to use it against him, of course; it's just that the relevant facts in this case are miles removed from those in the Grokster case.
Interesting that Bram's manifesto from 5 years ago, whether parody or not, seem to be pretty sane, flat headed, and reflect my beliefs. I don't see what could possibly be taken as anything other than a personal opinion and political statement. Even in the eyes of the Grokster case, there is no mention that BitTorrent had piracy in mind.
If his personal issues and the software he wrote were to be correlated as one, in a court of law, then god save my employer, as they are to have a rude awakening when they realize that all their products were made in part by someone that had "illegal aspirations"!!!!
Just look at the success stories of file sharing technologies that tried to monitor the content being traded. Napster....ohh wait, nevermind.
The Supreme Court didn't create a new law, they simply clarified interpretation of existing law.
Its troubling that people out there don't understand basic concepts about the US government.
No one has a sense of humor?
No one can get subtlety?
Must every word we write be played back in monotone, completely out of context, character, to see if it can be used against us?
Anyone who understands hacker culture, or Bram's personality, would read that and laugh.
God, I probably have something just as ridiculous saved somewhere. In fact, I know I do, and I know someone else got ahold of it and spruced it up with Photoshop and made it look like a piece of communist propaganda that I'm just about ready to print out a million copies of. I come across it every so often and laugh, and anyone who knows me would laugh if they saw it.
And a court would say that clearly this is the mind of a terrorist.
Fuck.
Bram Cohen produces software. (Without illegal. intent.)
:p
People use software to perform illegal acts.
Smith and Wesson produces guns.(Without illegal. intent.)
People use guns to perform illegal acts.
GM produces cars. (Without illegal. intent.)
People use cars to perform illegal acts.
Why is it the leadership that the people have selected to run our country seems to be forgetting that PEOPLE PERFORM ILLEGAL ACTS.
Not software
Not guns
Not cars
Not Corporations
PEOPLE.
It's time the Judicial system starting hold PEOPLE accountable for what they do not the item they used to do it.
Welcome to America, everyday closer to a Socialist Republic.
Actually making some kind of point or argument is unnecessary. Instead, save valuable time and effort by just describing some kind of hypothetical person with rigid yet inconsistent viewpoints. Then, point out their viewpoints are inconsistent. Congratulations, you've won!
Advanced version: Make the implication that the hypothetical person you've described speaks for the readers of Slashdot. Since mysteriously enough pretty much everyone who reads slashdot seems to hate it, this will bestow you with instant crowd appeal!
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Because much of the law is intent in the new ruling on filesharing.
If you kill someone by hitting them with your car, you might get 200 days in jail. If you say outright that you meant to kill them purposefully, that's 50 years.
The only difference there is speech - speech that reveals intent.
If Cohen's intent is to facilitate widescale piracy, then he might be guilty of something. This might prove his intent (or, it might not). That's why this matters.
Only in America can you get prosecuted for not knowing the future.
I love my country; I love what America stands for.
However, the direction we (speaking from a US-centric position) are going is not very wise, and so I would have to agree with you--it is true. Now, I'm probably going to be modded down for what I am about to say, but I think that a lot of it is relevant to this case. Let's review a few things that have happened in the passed year or less that is dangerous to the USA and her allies.
1) The Schiavo case. It's insignificant to most
This isn't to say that the Schiavo case is even remotely similar. However, it has certainly opened a pandora's box that I think has the potential to be very bad.
2) New London, Connecticut property seizures. While the Fifth Amendment allows government to seize property "for public use," it does not allow for private property to be seized and granted to other private property owners--not until now. In today's USA, property (read: wealth) redistribution can legally occur upwards. What this means is that wealthier entities can now seize the property of less wealthy entities and the action is sanctioned by the government. God help you if you live on ocean front property or other "prime real estate" locations.
3) Chip Salzenberg has a legal problem along similar lines. Admittedly, he shouldn't have threatened legal action against the company--big mistake--but his property was unjustly seized (IMO) based upon fraudulent claims. I would think this should be a violation of the Fourth Amendment, particularly if the company were responsible for forging documents (I don't know their side of the story, so my opinion on this is likely to change).
And now...
4) Something written, potentially in jest and very likely taken out of context, can affect the outcome of a legal battle years and years down the road? The ramifications of this are absurd--does this imply that, if an ex of mine said "I wish you'd just die" and I die ten years down the road, my parents would be able to file suit against her in a potential murder case? Come on. I realize this is incredibly out of context, but frankly, given the idiotic nature of recent rulings, I can't say as I would be surprised.
So in short, I would agree. The US has problems--big problems. Perhaps I'm overreacting, perhaps I'm reading too far into this mess, but let's be honest here. The rest of the world is scratching its head after the last week's news coming out of the USA thinking we've lost our marbles. "Seizing private property and awarding it to a company? What is WRONG with the Americans?"
It's our courts. The people can't vote on issues like this--they are decided by people who are appointed. Our legal system has its benefits, but in recent months, I'm begining to wonder if its design isn't almost entirely broken. Or may we're dragging too many decisions into the courts when they should be decided by a vote at the community level?
He who has no
The jury system and the courts in general would work a hell of a lot better if people wouldn't weasel out of jury duty.
That is part of why innocent people get convicted and the court system fails so much.
Doing your part as a citizen for a few days is more important than the next 10K lines of code you'll write, for sure.
When all the courts have for a jury pool is whoever is left after people have weasel out, it is no wonder things go the way they do.
We need techie on juries. Else if you go to court, you won't have a jury of your peers, you'll have a jury of former jocks, bullies, preppies and cheerleaders.
That's why you have a much better chance if you are accused of a non-techie crime - since most technical issues are beyond most jurors.
Just because it CAN be done, doesn't mean it should!
Bram Cohen writes a beautiful piece of social bandwidth-balancing software and of course the music and film industry tears him down like any other thing that could vaguely perceivably harm their bottom line.
His software is a significant step forward in helping to balance information load-sharing. Distribution of information will never move forward if big business is allowed to clamp down on clever individuals.
There's my rant.