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How Litigation Only Spurred On P2P File Sharing
littlekorea writes "The growth in peer-to-peer file sharing surged in response to efforts by the content industry to litigate over the past decade, according to a new study by a researcher at Melbourne's Monash University. Dr Rebecca Giblin explains why 'physical world' assumptions don't apply to the online world."
Correlation does not exclude causation either.
Since when does someone take it upon theirselves to demand royalties from people that trade movies by lending their discs over Sneakernet?
Shut these bums down. They don't make a living or contribute to the quality of life to others around them other than to exact fines and fees with the same precision as the Zetas and IRS.
I learned that this existed and that you could pirate stuff from all the controversy the RIAA and MPAA have done. If they never got sue happy and had absolute no morals, I probably wouldn't even know you could do this.
In fact, the only thing observable in the world is correlation. Causation exists only in models and that model could be supported by observed correlation.
Doesn't anyone take economics anymore?
Every product has a price that is based on supply and demand.
Digital media once created has a verry high supply ability. Thus it's cost is lowered. Digital content providers are charging more then what supply and demand curve intercection states. And legal controls that are trying to maintain this off balance. So... Blackmarkets are naturally formed to provide goods at their actual costs.
This is the same thing with drugs, unpasturized milk, under the counter workers...
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The article reads like an undergraduate who wants to write a shit-kicking thesis and is really oooh excited about things but has entirely failed to do anything more than throw a few disjointed ideas in a bucket. It is peppered with lines that sound good but don't stand up to a couple of seconds examination: " So once the Napster litigation made P2P programmers aware of the rules about knowledge and control, they simply coded Napster's successors to eliminate them." I mean WHAT? Programmers coded out rules of "knowledge and control"???? No, the rules of law on knowledge and control exist independently in jurisprudence. How do you "code out" something that's entirely outwith software? Nonsense.
I understood perfectly what the author was writing about in reference to knowledge and control.
Specifically, in regards to knowledge: The authors of Kazaa and Napster had the means, as a consequence of the design of their systems, to know what was being transmitted, by whom, and to whom it was going. This constituted knowledge of their customers actions. Most modern P2P software has no central server and no communications between the users of the software and the authors of the software. In short, the authors have no idea who is using their software, where they got it from, or what they are using it for. More importantly: they have no practical way of knowing.
Control is even easier to understand in this context. Napster and Kazaa relied on a central server to provide the service. These services had the ability to control what was being listed, or transmitted using their software. By virtue of their licensing, they had the ability to control who even used it. P2P eliminated almost all central control by way of servers, and the open source licensing ensured that anyone could use the software regardless of their intent. This means that even if the makers of xyz P2P software wanted to halt its use entirely, they would be legally (and logistically) incapable of doing so. They no longer have any practical control over their software, its users, or how they use it.
And at the heart of it, the article offers no causative argument that litigation spurred on file sharing. At best it observes that file sharing increased in the era after litigation but it falls down entirely in showing any causation rather than correlation. There are other daft arguments about the Supreme Court making laws: it doesn't, de Tocqueville et al were rather insistent it couldn't; rather its interpretation of law clarifies the law already in place, which show the author is floundering on the subject matter.
The article made a fairly persuasive argument about the likely underlying reasons for growth of online piracy *in spite* of the massive legal efforts of the **AA organizations. The articles unstated assumption is, that when faced with and defeated by such a large scale legal assault, the pervasiveness of piracy should have decreased. instead, as we know it increased. The article then provides a very persuasive explanation for the reasons why this legal assault failed. In the past many other similar assaults on piracy have succeeded. You don't see a whole lot of counterfeit goods in this country because of the reasons listed in the article. Online piracy is rampant however.
Weak.
Better than your response which was weak and trollish.
-=Geoskd
I wish I had a good sig, but all the good ones are copyrighted