Tag Archives: SOPA

The Fight over Copyright and Net Neutrality Will Shape the Net

Posted on January 21, 2012 by jnelson

The first battle over copyright on record was an actual physical battle. Around 560, Columba, an Irish monk, copied out a book of psalms, intending to keep it for himself. This was disputed by St. Finnian, owner of the original volume who had lent it to him to read. The saint was supported by the court which said that the reproduction rightfully belonged to him as sure as a calf does to its mother. It being the Dark Ages, there was nothing for it then but to fight it out. Columba’s side won the melee; in grief over the ensuing deaths, however, the monk left Ireland forever. During his lifelong exile, he founded the great monastery of Iona where the magnificent Book of Kells was later made, was the first known witness of the Loch Ness Monster, and ultimately became a saint, too, so it all worked out pretty well for him in the long run. A millennium and a half later, however, copyright conflicts are still being fought almost as viciously in the courts. But while modern media could not even be imagined by the scribes of old, the issues would be quite familiar. Now, as then, the greatest disagreements are often caused by the use of new technologies to do things previously impossible — be it with a goose-quill pen and parchment back then, or mouse and keyboard now. No rational person would disagree that artists should receive … Continue reading →

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What about the Stop Internet Piracy Act (SOPA) and the Protect-IP Act (PIPA)?

Posted on December 30, 2011 by jnelson

Recently, a customer wrote in for more information on these two important pieces of legislation. Here’s the response from SWCP President Mark Costlow, that we thought was so good, it deserved to be posted: SOPA and PROTECT-IP are both very bad ideas. They are attempts to address something that is a real problem (theft of intellectual property) but they do it in such a flawed way that the cure would be much worse than the disease. One can argue back and forth about how much of a problem piracy really is. Both sides tend to blow their positions out of proportion. But giving people the power to turn off (read: destroy) web sites at will, without due process, is irresponsible and dangerous. The existing mechanisms for removing infringing material from the internet already have “baby vs bathwater” problems, and these bills would make it worse. Here’s one example. DMCA Takedowns are routinely used to remove videos from YouTube which are deemed to contain a media company’s copyrighted material, when in fact the usage is in a news or commentary context and therefore covered under the Fair Use doctrine. The harmed party can protest the takedown and get it reversed, but that process is lengthy. For someone who makes their living commenting on current events, the takedown essentially nullifies the content.  It’s almost useless when they restore it 2 weeks later. Here’s a write-up of a recent case of this, but it’s … Continue reading →

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Risks and Rewards of File Sharing

Posted on December 9, 2011 by jnelson

Often when people hear the term “peer-to-peer file sharing”, they think of torrents, illegal swapping of the latest movies and music, and resulting lawsuits by the record or movie industries for piracy.  That does happen; however, file sharing encompasses much more than ripping off the latest hits. Peer-to-Peer, or P2P, is the most widely used form of file sharing. It has become a big and growing part of the Internet, already accounting for 50-70% of consumer network traffic, with millions of P2P clients downloaded and in use.  In 2004, an estimated 70 million people were busily sharing files, and doubtless many more now. But P2P is not the only means to share files over the Net. It should not be confused with file hosting, which uses the more familiar client-server architecture of the Internet to stream files to users from big, centralized Web servers. In its purest form, Peer-to-Peer is strictly that: users’ computers directly linked across the Net to their peers; that is, other users’ computers.  They join in a network of equals, each machine devoting some fraction of its computing power, bandwidth, and memory to the network, ideally without any need for a central coordinator. In fact, P2P works pretty much the way the Web was originally intended to function. Collaborative computing Civilization is the story of how ever-larger tasks can be done, and done much more efficiently, with cooperation. As a form of collaborative computing between users, … Continue reading →

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