p2p

More from the RIAA

bleckb — Tue, 6 May 2008 11:12:59 -0400

InsideHigherEd.com reports that the music industry is engaging in something akin to preemptive strikes. The article Mysterious Multiplication of Copyright Complaints takes a look at the speculative reasons behind increase in complaints lodged with a variety of colleges and universities, both big and small, despite no evidence of an increase in illegally shared files. The new complaints seem to be resulting in an increased reluctance to pursue alleged violations. For instance,

Indiana officials are now discussing whether they should continue to respond to complaints from the recording industry with the same aggressiveness. It’s not that university leaders have suddenly decided that illegal behavior isn’t wrong; instead, they are beginning to question the legitimacy of the notices the Recording Industry Association of America sends accusing network users of illegally sharing music.

One commenter in the discussion noted that the investigative arm of the RIAA is now referred to as a "contractor" rather than investigator.

more on mpaa math error

bleckb — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 14:16:56 -0500

Inside Higher Ed is reporting today on the 300% Error made by the MPAA when they claimed in 2005 that college students are responsible for nearly 45% of illegal movie downloads, which they revised downward to 15% recently. The big question, who is the other 85%? Wonder what the RIAA thinks of this?

Oops: MPAA admits college piracy numbers grossly inflated

cel4145 — Wed, 23 Jan 2008 10:07:10 -0500

Ars Technica reports that MPAA data regarding losses from student downloading for 2005 were way over estimated:

After commissioning a 2005 study from LEK Consulting that showed collegiate file-swappers were responsible for 44 percent of movie studio "losses" to piracy, the MPAA then used the report it bought to bludgeon Congress into considering legislation to address this massive problem. Now the MPAA admits that the report's conclusions weren't even close to being right; collegiate piracy accounts for only 15 percent of "losses." Oops. And that's assuming you believe the rest of the data.

Sharing Scholarly Research Materials with Zotero

cel4145 — Wed, 9 Jan 2008 09:19:00 -0500

Wired Campus Blog reports that the Center for History and New Media at George Mason University wants to build an upload tool into Zotero which allow scholars to share their research materials. In principle, this is a great idea. But there's a better, well-proven technological method for sharing files that doesn't require scholars to load them into a database. It's called P2P, and it's surprising that Wired Campus Blog didn't comment on this given that they appropriated the "share" rhetoric of P2P in the title of their post, New Effort Encourages Professors to Share the Research Materials on Their Hard Drives. I thought it was going to be about P2P before I even read it. Has P2P gotten such a bad name in the academy that the power of its potential legitimate use is not considered?

RIAA bowing down to Washington (University of)?

bleckb — Tue, 1 Jan 2008 12:49:13 -0500

A story from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer indicates more resistance, maybe even growing resistance, to the RIAA strategy of going after students through the institution they attend. Here's the lead:

The University of Washington is evaluating reports that 16 students illegally downloaded music on campus computers, and officials say they won't pass along letters from the Recording Industry Association of America asking for thousands of dollars until they can identify the students at fault.

U of Michigan alerts users to uploading

bleckb — Wed, 7 Nov 2007 10:47:43 -0500

InsideHigherEd.com reports today that the University of Michigan will notify users of their network when files are being uploaded from their computers. This seems to be in response to RIAA targeting not of downloading music files, but those who make them available, via uploading.

The approach highlights some of the dilemmas facing colleges and universities as they comply with (or, in some cases, resist) the recording industry’s battle to combat students who share copyrighted music, TV shows and movies. Universities are considered Internet service providers in cases of copyright infringement, leaving them in most cases not liable for the actions of students who use their networks for potentially illegal purposes. But that sometimes places them in a position that critics liken to network cops for hire, but others characterize as legitimate enforcers of the law.

One can only hope this is a part of a trend, coupled with Oregon's resisting RIAA subpoenas, that will protect students and fair use.

University of Oregon Refusing to Answer RIAA Subpoena

cel4145 — Fri, 2 Nov 2007 10:34:35 -0400

It's about time a university stood up to the RIAA. From Slashdot:

"The University of Oregon has filed a motion to quash the RIAA's subpoena for information on student identities in what is believed to be the first such motion made by a university with support from the state Attorney General. The motion (pdf) explains that it is impossible to identify the alleged infringers from the information the RIAA has presented. . . ."

Maybe now some other universities will finally put their students first.

RIAA trial verdict is in: jury finds Thomas liable for infringement

cel4145 — Sat, 6 Oct 2007 09:40:27 -0400

Ars Technica reports that the RIAA has won their trial in a P2P piracy case, Capitol Records v. Jammie Thomas. The jury awarded the record company $220,000 in damages. I'm guessing that now the RIAA will become more emboldened and aggressive in their efforts to harass students.

straight from the RIAA's mouth

bleckb — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 11:55:01 -0400

Today, two representatives (I almost wrote "shills" but that would be editorializing) have a piece in Inside Higher Ed. Here's the opening paragraph: As many in the higher education community are well aware from news coverage here [at Inside Higher Ed] and elsewhere, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), on behalf of its member labels, recently initiated a new process for lawsuits against computer users who engage in illegal file-trafficking of copyrighted content on peer-to-peer (P2P) systems. In the new round of lawsuits, 400 of these legal actions were directed at college and university students around the country. The inclusion of so many students was unprecedented. Unfortunately, it was also necessary. You can read the rest here if you like: http://insidehighered.com/views/2007/03/15/sherman

EMI to Release Music for Download without DRM

cel4145 — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 08:33:22 -0500

Less than a week since Steve Jobs' announcement that the cd labels should move to eliminate DRM in music for sale by download, Ars Technica reports on a rumor

that EMI is in negotiations with some of the leading music stores to offer a substantial portion of its music catalog without DRM, with an announcement due as early as today.

Ironically, another study has been released which concludes that P2P file sharing has no appreciable impact on music sales. But I'm certain that DRM does. I'm not going to buy music online through iTunes with all of the complications that DRM causes. It's not worth it, and I'm sure other consumers feel the same way. Anyone gotten burned yet by iTunes, where they have lost access to music they have purchased because of a computer glitch, or become frustrated because they can't play it but on devices which support Apple's FairPlay? Thank you, EMI, for listening to the purchasing habits of those that buy music rather than continuing to succumb to the mass hysteria in your industry about P2P.

Now if they'd only get smart and figure out the negative press from the RIAA lawsuits is doing more damage to music sales than P2P.

Next Rhetoric & Composition MMTOR

Clancy — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 14:40:16 -0500

Massive Multi-Thinker Online Review, that is. I think it should be about John Logie's new book, Peers, Pirates, and Persuasion: Rhetoric in the Peer-to-Peer Debates, now available from Parlor Press. You can order it or download it for free as a PDF. The book has a Creative Commons license too. More about the book:

Peers, Pirates, and Persuasion: Rhetoric in the Peer-to-Peer Debates investigates the role of rhetoric in shaping public perceptions about a novel technology: peer-to-peer file-sharing networks. While broadband Internet services now allow speedy transfers of complex media files, Americans face real uncertainty about whether peer-to-peer file sharing is or should be legal. John Logie analyzes the public arguments growing out of more than five years of debate sparked by the advent of Napster, the first widely adopted peer-to-peer technology. The debate continues with the second wave of peer-to-peer file transfer utilities like Limewire, KaZaA, and BitTorrent. With Peers, Pirates, and Persuasion, Logie joins the likes of Lawrence Lessig, Siva Vaidhyanathan, Jessica Litman, and James Boyle in the ongoing effort to challenge and change current copyright law so that it fulfills its purpose of fostering creativity and innovation while protecting the rights of artists in an attention economy. Logie examines metaphoric frames—warfare, theft, piracy, sharing, and hacking, for example—that dominate the peer-to-peer debates and demonstrably shape public policy on the use and exchange of digital media. Peers, Pirates, and Persuasion identifies the Napster case as a failed opportunity for a productive national discussion on intellectual property rights and responsibilities in digital environments. Logie closes by examining the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the “Grokster” case, in which leading peer-to-peer companies were found to be actively inducing copyright infringement. The Grokster case, Logie contends, has already produced the chilling effects that will stifle the innovative spirit at the heart of the Internet and networked communities.

So what do you think? Want to do it? What's a date we can shoot for? (Cross-posted at CultureCat.)

The RIAA will sue you after you are dead

cel4145 — Sun, 13 Aug 2006 00:57:31 -0400

Apparently, the RIAA will continue to sue you after you are dead. Larry Scantlebury has been fighting the RIAA in court over his alleged downloading of music files. Despite Scantlebury's recent death, instead of merely dropping the case, the RIAA have filed for a 60 day respite before continuing with the suit against Scantlebury's estate because

Plaintiffs do not believe it appropriate to discuss a resolution of the case with the family so close to Mr. Scantlebury's passing. Plaintiffs therefore request a stay of 60 days to allow the family additional time to grieve.

Hmmm...wouldn't the smart PR move be just to offer to drop the case? lol

You have been charged with attempted copyright infringement

cel4145 — Wed, 9 Aug 2006 01:03:39 -0400

Grant Robertson's The RIAA vs. John Doe, a layperson's guide to filesharing lawsuits is a great read if you ever wanted to learn about the RIAA's heavy-handed tactics for suing P2P users. Robertson revised Ray Beckerman's legalese filled How the RIAA Litigation Process Works in order to present a more interesting, accessible overview. Take a look at some of the comments, too. For instance, Song.mp3 points out how utterly unreliable it is to base a lawsuit on an IP address. How many people are using routers? Most will be configured as firewalls, and the IP points to the router, not the computer. If the router is configured as an open access point, anyone within wireless range could log onto the network and be using it to share files. All of this got me to wondering. IANAL, but the lawsuit seems to be based on the RIAA's ability to download the files as proof of copyright infringement. How could they know if anyone else has downloaded any files? (I'd be curious to know if ISP's are maintaining and suppplying full IP traffic records to the RIAA) Is it copyright infringement to redistribute copyrighted materials to the copyright owner (the RIAA is the legal representative of the copyright owner)? At best can the RIAA only claim that there is attempted copyright infringement? Regardless, it must be impossible to prove that there was any real damage done the copyright owner if the RIAA can only show themselves to have downloaded the file. Now I'm done. Rant about other idiocy--Blackboard and patents--coming in the near future ;-)

feds look at file sharing

bleckb — Tue, 25 Jul 2006 11:31:55 -0400

The Government Accountability Office has been told by Congress to have a look at file sharing activities on college campuses: http://insidehighered.com/news/2006/07/25/gao. I'm sure only good things will come of this. *I cleaned up my spelling error, changing "collee" to "college" so now Matt's joke below doesn't make any sense at all, hah!

"Why we are Not Evil !"

cel4145 — Wed, 29 Mar 2006 11:05:33 -0500

I stumbled on this posting from the Creative Commons weblog last week and thought it might be interesting to those of you following the rhetoric of the P2P debate represented in John Logie's article in First Monday. Magnatune, who has been trying for quite a while to build a model of music distribution and sales around allowing others to download and sample tracks from their albums, is explaining now Why we are Not Evil !

Of course Magnatune is not providing music for file sharing across P2P (although they do encourage you to copy any purchased albums to share with "up to 3 of your friends"), but this seems tangentially related enough, a response to piracy and the aggressive actions of the RIAA. Then there's the USA Today piece about Magnatune provided for download on their website whose title positions them as one of the good guys, too: Apple's iTunes Might Not Be Only Answer to Ending Piracy. What's interesting to me is that Magnatune is trying to find a place of non-evil which is outside of the typical polarized positions that Logie talks about, yet is again polarizing by using an opposite binary term.

The Anti-Lessig Reader

Clancy — Sun, 19 Feb 2006 19:21:36 -0500

Lawrence Lessig created a wiki for critics of his work, to assemble comprehensive counter-arguments for Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace, The Future of Ideas, and Free Culture. Those of us working in the copyright/authorship/intellectual property area might find it useful.

Warner Bros. to Try File Sharing

cel4145 — Mon, 30 Jan 2006 22:28:24 -0500

The Wall Street Journal Online reports that Warner Bros. has decided to implement In2Movies, a new pay for movies service in Germany. There's two "wow" moments. Once a user has paid for a movie, they will be able to download it and keep it indefinitely (this is a first; why couldn't pay per view do this?). Furthermore, when users download the movie, the movie will pull from multiple users on the network. Imagine that. The movie industry adopts P2P as soon as they find a way that it can save them money:

Supreme Court Rules "Unanimously" Against Grokster 3-3-3

logie — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 17:18:56 -0400

crossposted from blogologie Well, this sure isn't going to help matters! My initial reading of the three opinions in the Grokster case suggests that the justices' points of agreement are far more circumscribed than the 9-0 ruling suggests. Specifically, they agree that the case should head back to the 9th Circuit where summary judgment was improperly awarded to Grokster and Streamcast, and that the 9th Circuit must rule on whether Grokster and Streamcast are liable for inducing copyright infringement.After that, pretty much everything is up for grabs.

MGM vs Grokster: and the winner is . . .

cel4145 — Mon, 27 Jun 2005 15:59:10 -0400

The US Supreme Court ruled today in MGM vs Grokster. While the court ruled in favor of MGM, the ruling is not the death of P2P that many might thought it would be. As Justics Souter explains in the ruling,

We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement by third parties.

Clearly, then, the liability is limited to those who would distribute P2P specficially for copyright infringement. As Picker MobBlog points out,

MGM won on paper today, but my first reading of the opinion makes me wonder whether the victory will have any bite outside of this specific litigation. Intent-based standards, after all, are among the easiest to avoid. Just keep your message clear -- tell everyone that your technology is designed to facilitate only authorized exchange -- and you have no risk of accountability.

All-in-all, this sounds like an acceptable ruling to me that doesn't rule out P2P for non-infringing uses and will deter the content industries from seeking legislative solutions that could possibly close down P2P use all together. IMHO, any organization/company that markets a technology directly for illegal use does deserve to be liable. Seems fair.

More good coverage at The Importance of

Teacher Fired for Pro-P2P Lecture

platypus matt — Fri, 20 May 2005 15:40:17 -0400

You've probably already seen this disturbing bit of news at Slashdot, but I posted it nonetheless here for your interest (and perhaps discussion). I'd like to think that any of us could talk to our students all we wanted to about legitimate purposes for P2P without being fired (or whatever you want to call it), but I'm really not sure. On the plus side, this guy has obviously generated enough publicity over this to probably land a great lecturing position at an Ivy League.

"Isn't the government using morality as a means for studios to make millions of dollars?"

cel4145 — Wed, 4 May 2005 10:47:25 -0400

The title of this post is an insightful quote from Kate Schwartz, a high school student who participated in a recent seminar on piracy including U.S. Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales. As the LA Times reports,

During a daylong UCLA seminar featuring Gonzales, students peppered speakers with tough questions about the real effect of piracy. Some even suggested that government should focus more on tackling poverty and improving education than on jailing kids who download movies, music and software.

I'm with the students. Is Internet piracy such a big crime against society that the US Attorney General should be busy promoting the entertainment industries' agenda? Mike Godwin sarcastically points out in "The New Legal Panic over Copyright" (Copyfights Eds Theierer and Crews) that

the general trend, at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990's, was for software to be relatively unencumbered by copyright protection, if not outright unprotected. Now, as we know, Microsoft since the 1980's has utterly collapsed in the absence of strong copyright protection. The company has gone down the economic drain, and they have our sympathy. (179)

Microsoft managed to survive, despite the piracy of Windows and Office (who doesn't know someone who had an unlicensed copy of one or the other?). I'm sure that the entertainment industries will survive another day without including the attorney general in their advocacy campaign.

RIAA Subpoenas for University Students Blocked

cel4145 — Fri, 22 Apr 2005 09:15:23 -0400

A few more rulings like these and they'll be no more subpoenas. The Chronicle of Higher Education (registration required) reports that RIAA attempts to discover student identities at UNC Chapel Hill and NC State have been blocked:

The students said the subpoenas were invalid because they did not conform to the provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that authorizes such subpoenas and because they were unconstitutional. . . . Judge Russell A. Eliason, of the U.S. District Court in Greensboro, N.C., agreed with the students that the subpoenas violated the digital copyright act.

The decision is based on a previous decision from a U.S. Court of Appeals which ruled that

the subpoenas could be issued only to service providers that stored copyrighted material on their servers, not to providers, like Verizon, that were merely conduits of information sent by others.

The subpoenas issued to Chapel Hill and North Carolina State were the same type of documents that the appeals court had ruled were illegal. The universities' networks were used to transmit songs traded by students, but not to store the music.

Too bad these judges weren't on the US Supreme Court to rule on Eldred vs Ashcroft. Perhaps the Grokster case will see a similar, non-content industry biased ruling

Link courtesy of Wired Campus Blog

CFP: Computers and Writing Online 2005

cel4145 — Mon, 18 Apr 2005 11:47:05 -0400

CFP: Computers and Writing Online 2005

When Content Is No Longer King: Social Networking, Community, and Collaboration

David Reed explains that in the early stages of a network's formation and growth, that “content is king,” that there are a “a small number of sources (publishers or makers) of content that every user selects from" (qtd in Rheingold Smart Mobs 61). As the network scales, “group-forming networks” occur, and the value of the network increases exponentially in relationship of the number of users, otherwise known as Reed's Law, privileging the social interaction over content.

We can see this change in network valuation in today's Internet. The increased valuing of social interaction in large scale networks is reflected in the new technologies that place emphasis on social communication and community over content. These technologies, often dubbed “social software” are applications that, as Clay Shirky explains, “support group interaction.”

We invite proposals from scholars, graduate students and others who have an interest in computers and writing and social interactions and are working on projects in gestation, in progress, near completion, or at any stage in between, whether a thesis or dissertation, article, book project, or just want to preview and fine-tune your conference presentation for Computers and Writing Conference hosted by Stanford University. This is a unique opportunity for extended discussion of your ideas before heading to Palo Alto. Conference organizers are particularly interested in presentations that address, but are not limited to, the following concerns:

Piercing the peer–to–peer myths: An examination of the Canadian experience

cel4145 — Mon, 11 Apr 2005 09:45:47 -0400

Michael Geist has an article in this month's First Monday which refutes record industry excessive claims regarding file sharing's effects on music sales. Here's the abstract:

Canada is in the midst of a contentious copyright reform with advocates for stronger copyright protection maintaining that the Internet has led to widespread infringement that has harmed the economic interests of Canadian artists. The Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) has emerged as the leading proponent of copyright reform, claiming that peer–to–peer file sharing has led to billions in lost sales in Canada.

This article examines CRIA’s claims by conducting an analysis of industry figures. It concludes that loss claims have been greatly exaggerated and challenges the contention that recent sales declines are primarily attributable to file–sharing activities. Moreover, the article assesses the financial impact of declining sales on Canadian artists, concluding that revenue collected through a private copying levy system already adequately compensates Canadian artists for the private copying that occurs on peer–to–peer networks.

Pew: File swappers use iPods, IM to trade tunes

cel4145 — Fri, 25 Mar 2005 09:38:26 -0500

I have always suspected that this would happen. It appears that even a legislated elimination of P2P will not stop file trading now that Pandora's Box has been opened. According to ITworld,

A Pew survey of 1,421 U.S. adult Internet users found that informal file-sharing networks are used by 19 percent of music and video downloaders, with MP3 players, e-mail and IM (instant message) products popular mediums for transferring files between friends and family. The results of the survey suggest that legal action by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and others is shifting file swapping to other online avenues, even as file-sharing activity recovers from recent declines, Pew said.

Of course, DRM might eventually put an end to most of these methods of sharing files.

On Being an RIAA "John Doe"

platypus matt — Fri, 11 Mar 2005 08:34:25 -0500

village voice > music > Meet John Doe by Nick Mamatas There's a great article here by a man who was recently sued in one of the RIAA's "John Doe" lawsuits. It's a pretty frightening read for most of us, I'm sure. It looks as though the RIAA is settling for $3,000-$7,000 dollars, and if you go to court, expect a judge to nail you $700 per song you downloaded. It also seems that the RIAA is targeting folks who share lots of files. The theme of the article is that playing the P2P game is sorta like the reverse of the lottery; you have a very small chance of losing, but when you do, it REALLY sucks!

Shinkuro Collaboration and P2P

cel4145 — Fri, 25 Feb 2005 09:45:02 -0500

Thanks to a recommendation on TechRhet from Eric Crump, Dave Blakesley and I gave Shinkuro a try yesterday. Shinkuro is a file sharing/collaboration application that allows for creating various work groups. Members in a work group can share files from their hard drives with the rest of the group. It's a P2P application. The software contains a built in instant messaging system and other features to facilititate the collaboration process. From what I can tell, this is very similar to Groove except that Shinkuro has a free download of their beta.

P2P Manifesto

cel4145 — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 17:13:09 -0500

I always like the term "manifesto when it's applied to things like this:

P2P Manifesto: because P2P is unstoppable, positive for companies, for the market and for users.

Also available as a pdf.

M/Cyclopedia of New Media

Clancy — Mon, 17 Jan 2005 10:48:19 -0500

Just discovered this today: The M/Cyclopedia of New Media, maintained by students at Australia's Queensland Institute of Technology. Topics covered include weblogs, games, p2p, and much more.

P2P ads leave music industry fuming

cel4145 — Tue, 16 Nov 2004 00:11:19 -0500

The entertainment industries must be fuming over this:

If you have fired up your favorite peer-to-peer client lately, you may have noticed ads from a number of different companies, including Renault, Nat West, and Vodafone. As advertisers look for more and more effective means of getting their products in front of the most eyeballs possible, some of them are turning to P2P networks. (ars technica)

I wonder which is more frustrating to the entertainment industry? That major companies could care less about piracy? Or that on principle, they can't take advantage of what might be one of the best advertising mediums for their products?

BitTorrent Comes Under the File Sharing Gun

cel4145 — Mon, 8 Nov 2004 08:48:52 -0500

A report from Reuters last week notes BitTorrent's supposed use of 35% of all Internet traffic. Arstechnica cites a quote from the Reuters's piece in referring to the attention that BitTorrent is getting from the MPAA:

John Malcolm, director of worldwide anti-piracy operations for the MPAA, said that his group is well aware of the vast amounts of copyrighted material being traded via BitTorrent.

"It's a very efficient delivery system for large files, and it's being used and abused by a hell of a lot of people," he told Reuters. "We're studying our options, as we do with all new technologies which are abused by people to engage in theft."

Given that BitTorrent is also a model for legitmate uses of P2P, will the MPAA and RIAA be able to attack BitTorrent in the way that they have previous file sharing services?

So much for anonymous file sharing in California

cel4145 — Wed, 22 Sep 2004 22:59:56 -0400

The SFGate notes that on Tuesday, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed into law a new piece of legislation "requiring anyone disseminating movies or music on the Internet to disclose their e-mail address." Failure to comply can result in a misdemeanor. Hmmm...I suggest that people across California have a National File Sharing day in protest of the privacy loss with the new law, walk into their local police station, and turn themselves in. If only half the people guilty of file sharing in the state did this, it would grind law enforcement to a halt. Maybe then California would just decriminalize piracy. Link via Slashdot.

Earthlink's SIPshare

cel4145 — Thu, 16 Sep 2004 10:32:23 -0400

While Congress trudges away trying to outlaw P2P technology, one of the major telecom's, Earthlink, has released a new, open source P2P network application: SIPshare. While the technological implications are certainly significant--Earthlink notes that this protocol can enable VoIP over a P2P network--what is more important is Earthlink's demonstrated and stated commitment to P2P:

EarthLink believes an open Internet is a good Internet. An open Internet means users have full end-to-end connectivity to say to each other whatever it is they say, be that voice, video, or other data exchanges, without the help of mediating servers in the middle whenever possible. We believe that if peer-to-peer flourishes, the Internet flourishes. SIPshare helps spread the word that SIP is more than a powerful voice over IP enabler --- much more. SIP is a protocol that enables peer-to-peer in a standards-based way.

Link via Slashdot.

EFFector Newsletter Warns Many College Students Would Become Criminals

cel4145 — Fri, 10 Sep 2004 02:12:04 -0400

EFFector Vol. 17, No. 33 September 10, 2004 warns that the Piracy Deterrence and Education Act "is now ready for a vote by the entire House of Representatives."

And I'm sure most of us would agree that the following statistics make sense:

The PDEA would impose criminal penalties on those who share more than 1,000 infringing files on a peer-to-peer network. Recent surveys by Ruckus Network show that the average college student who uses P2P file-sharing software shares 1,100 files.

Stallman's The Right to Read comes to mind, doesn't it? Personally, I don't think protesting this will do much other than postpone it and maybe lessen the severity of P2P prosecution legislation in the long run. If it doesn't make it through this time, the content industries will just lobby for it again. And again. And again. It will eventually pass in one form or another.

Don't think I wouldn't mind at all being wrong in this prediction. But historically the trend seems to be going the wrong way when it comes to intellectual property.

The EFF sometimes takes a while to make their email newsletter available online, but you should be able to read the full message through their archives in the next few days.

Let's Outlaw P2P, WiFI, Legos: The INDUCE Act

cel4145 — Fri, 23 Jul 2004 10:35:53 -0400

This week, the Senate Judiciary Committee has been hearing testimony on the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act (INDUCE Act). Wired sums it up best:

The Senate Judiciary Committee will consider a bill Thursday that would hold technology companies liable for any product they make that encourages people to steal copyright materials.

Doesn't take much to realize how bad this one is. Critics have noted that the bill will stifle innovation by nullifying the Sony Betamax decision. For instance, even Legos could be considered a copyright infringement inducing technology.

To follow the events more closely, read The Importance of.

Paypal No Friend of FreeNet

platypus matt — Tue, 18 May 2004 06:23:00 -0400

Oh, man. I know there was some reason I couldn't sleep last night (I'm up at 6:30 a.m. if that's any indication)--Paypal has refused to provide service to Freenet. Freenet was using Paypal as a means to accept contributions. Now, what would persuade a greedy little company like Paypal to refuse service to a wonderful organization like Freenet? My thoughts--they were tipped off. I bet in the next few weeks the RIAA/MPAA will make a move against Freenet, and Paypal wanted to step clear. For those who don't know about Freenet, it's truly a wonderful bit of peer-to-peer networking. Indeed, I think it has some of the best commercial potential of any P2P service yet devised. The system is beautiful. Basically, it creates a partition on your drive that is inaccessible to you or anyone else; it's actually an encrypted piece of the Freenet. If you want a file, say, the latest Madonna mp3, you do a search and Freenet pulls the file together from all of the bits and pieces strewn across the partitions of other freenet users' hard drives. That's assuming that the Madonna mp3 is popular enough to make it to the freenet; the system automatically deletes the least popular files.

Sales and Shipments

platypus matt — Fri, 14 May 2004 10:51:00 -0400

It appears that the RIAA has been misleading the public about the supposed crisis in album sales, while the Nielson Ratings indicates that sales are just fine. The problem is that the RIAA looks at units shipped, whereas the Nielson guys rely on "barcode scanned purchases." The results? Well, the second system indicates a 10% rise! Obviously, record stores aren't interested in stockpiles of goods that clutter up already compact stores. Instead, they make many small orders; it's an "on demand" model that helps the stores compete with the online market.

Speaking of Music Piracy ....

cel4145 — Tue, 13 Apr 2004 10:41:00 -0400

This article from Wired makes clear who the real music pirates are when it comes to downloading music. The major labels are thinking about additional price gouging...err...of raising prices ;)

Unburdened by manufacturing and distribution costs, online music was supposed to usher in a new era of inexpensive, easy-to-access music for consumers. In many cases, buying music online is still cheaper than shopping for CDs at retail outlets. But just a year after iTunes debuted with its 99-cent songs and mostly $9.99 albums, that affordable and straightforward pricing structure is already under pressure.

All five major music companies are discussing ways to boost the price of single-song downloads on hot releases -- to anywhere from $1.25 to as much as $2.49. It isn't clear how or when such a price hike would take place, and it could still be months away. Sales of such singles -- prices have remained at 99 cents -- still account for the majority of online music sales.

Combining BitTorrent and RSS: Broadcatching

cel4145 — Mon, 29 Mar 2004 21:18:00 -0500

This is pretty recent on the new technology radar. What happens when you combine RSS subscriptions and BitTorrent P2P? Broadcatching, a way of subscribing to a channel which pushes content such as pdf, audio, and video to your computer. Andrew Grumet reports that

When I logged in this morning there was a BitTorrent window open and a copy of Free Culture on my hard drive. Simon put this Creatively Licensed work on LegalTorrents, and the Radio plugin did the rest. What a pleasant surprise! I seriously doubt I'll have the patience or motivation to read the whole thing sitting at the computer, but the chances that I'll go out and buy a dead trees copy just went up significantly.

Certainly, ubiquitous use would require ubiquitous broadband access, but imagine--in an open content/open access world of course--if upon registering for a class, students subscribed to an RSS channel for that class which would automatically push all the course materials and handouts to them (this would be especially handy for online courses). Or suppose as scholars, we created an RSS channel for computers and writing and shared open access journal articles and other files among colleagues, a channel which would continually update our hard drives as new material was found by anyone in the group?

Peer2Peer Networking in Higher Education: New Challenges in a VI

Clancy — Fri, 12 Dec 2003 01:32:00 -0500

Was that title cut off, or is "VI" an abbreviation for something? Anyway, for those of you who are interested in researching p2p networks (and trying to persuade other academics to pay attention to them), here is something to bolster your case...although it doesn't really make the implications clear. I think it's hard to explain copyright issues' and p2p's relevance to our discipline to people who aren't techies. It's absolutely necessary, but I haven't seen anyone do it yet, at least not with p2p. In this white paper, there is a section called "So What Does P2P Have to Do With Us Anyway?" These authors try to explain, but they don't quite get there. If I weren't already aware of the stakes in the intellectual property/copyright debates and didn't already know something about p2p technology, I would be lost. Here is a summary of the white paper:

Kazaa Derivatives Offer RIAA-Blocking Features

cel4145 — Tue, 15 Jul 2003 16:43:00 -0400

This should make the P2P versus the RIAA battle more interesting. Looks like right in time for the fall semester (students should be delighted), both Kazaa and Kazaa Lite will feature identity protection to prevent the RIAA from obtaining the IP addresses of traders. Shouldn't be any surprise that this was going to happen. Now the RIAA will probably argue for Senator Hatch's proposal for taking down pirates.

Improving peer-to-peer's reputation, and BitTorrent

Clancy — Sun, 15 Jun 2003 10:47:00 -0400

bIPlog's Mary Hodder has some good observations of the potential uses of P2P networks. She says that

[b]ecause most P2P apps are for piracy purposes, companies and others have not explored and used P2P for more legitimate purposes, but increasingly sophisticated P2P apps are being developed that in future might relieve the burden on file caching companies so that individuals will spread freeware, collaborative work projects and other legitimately shared files. This kind of distributed sharing and collaboration is likely the future of Internet based work for knowledge sharing and development. So the success of certain kinds of P2P may hold back or delay the development of technologies, due to DMCA related fears of prosecution, as well as the development and adoption of information technology based work practices that rely on P2P applications.

Using Palladium to Secure P2P Networks

cel4145 — Tue, 3 Jun 2003 00:03:00 -0400

Ooppss...Here's the real joke of the day. Slashdot is reporting on an article which makes a case for how Palladium can be used to protect piracy on P2P networks. From the discussion in the Slashdot comments, seems like it might work.

One slashdotter noted how fair use rights could also allow pirates to make legally available small sections of their DRM encoded media, even if it is protected, resulting in a full version with enough contributors:

Program Lets P2P Users Roam Free

Clancy — Tue, 6 May 2003 14:39:00 -0400

From Wired:

A new "cloaking" application that protects individuals from network snooping is making the rounds among file traders, marking the latest salvo in the increasingly volatile battle between music labels and file traders.

The program is called PeerGuardian. The article gives a great background of the precedent-setting Gnutella case in Los Angeles and other posturings of the RIAA.

Fighting P2P Piracy Gone Wrong

cel4145 — Mon, 21 Apr 2003 11:44:00 -0400

First, is page loading of Kairosnews significantly--intermittantly though--slower during the day for the last week or so? For me it is. I'm writing this via a proxy server connection into our network backbone to avoid delays which have even caused time out errors.

Seems that FSU removed the Internet traffic control mechanism that they put in place at the beginning of the semester, the one that caused problems then. Turns out that it was a loan from a commercial vendor and had to be returned. Now our network is all clogged up as they try to reconfigure the system. Whether this experiment was successful or not at slowing down P2P, the major consequence is that the entire campus network has been thrown into disarray during the first two weeks and the last two of the semester.

Second, Madonna has become really aggressive fighting piracy of her work. In preparation for her new album release, she's flooded the P2P networks with mp3's that don't play her music, but rather the nice message to file traders:

The RIAA Is Suing College Students Over P2P Piracy

cel4145 — Fri, 4 Apr 2003 11:45:00 -0500

Both Wired and The Chronicle of Higher Education are talking about it. What is interesting is that the RIAA did not notify some of the universities involved, as they have done in the past, choosing instead to bypass that means to eliminating file trading in favor of prosecution. Seems like this could be a tactic to put additional pressure on universities as well.

P2P text sharing

mecran01 — Thu, 6 Mar 2003 17:37:00 -0500

Stephen Downe's OLD daily newsletter linked to a short article on textbook theft using scanners.

There wasn't really much evidence of this happening on a wide scale. I tend to think that this sort of thing happens in response to new technologies and grossly overpriced products, like CDs or Mach III razors.

Although I don't condone it, I know someone who can put a good-sized book online using a basic scanner and Abbey Finereader in about 45 minutes.

Part of me likes the idea of blackmarket textbooks converted to .pdfs being shuttled about via p2p networks.

Cory Doctorow's Bitchun' World: P2P Gone Wild

cel4145 — Fri, 28 Feb 2003 16:41:00 -0500

In this interview on O'Reilly Network, Cory Doctorow discusses his new book available for download, Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom, in light of his views on P2P and IP.

For instance, I got a good laugh out of Doctorow's criticism of the music industry:

But the recording industry has a story of, "We do two really important roles. One is to make music available and the other is to compensate artists." But one of the things we know is that 80 percent of all of the music ever released isn't for sale anywhere in the world. And another thing we know is that 97 percent of the artists signed to a recording contract earn less than $600 per year off of it. So Napster doesn't have a better track record at compensating artists, but it sure as shit had a better track record of making music available.

New Software Promises Unrestricted Access Through P2P Networks

EMason — Sun, 13 Oct 2002 07:05:00 -0400

This article from Technews.com reviews three software developments aimed at granting "unrestricted Internet access to users in China, Iran and other countries whose governments use filtering or censoring software to control their Internet connection." Two of the programs establish P2P networks through which users can download encrypted versions of banned content.

Eminem CD spotlights new piracy patterns

cel4145 — Wed, 29 May 2002 02:41:43 -0400

From C/NET News.com:

Well before rapper Eminem's new record hit store shelves Sunday, it had already become the second-most-played CD in computer drives around the world, according to one closely watched measure.