File-sharing to bypass news censorship

[The Sushi Bandit]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/3611227.stm

By the year 2010, file-sharers could be swapping news rather than music, eliminating censorship of any kind.
<snip>
"If you can break the grip of the news syndication services and allow the news collector to talk to the radio station or local newspaper then you can have much more efficient communications."
<snip>
"Once you build the technology to break censorship, you've broken censorship - even of the things you want censored," said Mr Thompson.

[ret5hd]

1. News...the porn of the 21st century.

[madrchsod]

2. ooo- i don`t think so....

the amount of legislation that has been introduced by the democrats and republicans will all but effectively shut down file sharing on p2p networks. maybe programs such as the bit torrent concept will get around the censorship programs...

[Occulus]

5. ...not...

File sharing is like the atomic bomb: now that it's been invented (and, really, P2P may be a 'new' technology but it's a rather old idea; IRC, for example, has been capable of Direct Client to Client, or DCC, transfers for over a decade now), you cannot stuff it back into the bag. No matter how much legislation is written, there will always be people- such as myself- who believe that since the hard disk is composed of physical elements, much as one's front yard is composed of single blades of grass, and since those physical elements are owned without copyright by me, I should be able to arrange those elements in any way I desire. If doing so creates a pattern in the grass that someone else previously created, tough titty- it's still the 'grass in my yard', so to speak, and I can 'mow' it in any way I please. That's how I feel about the microscopic parts of a hard disk that the data is actually stored upon; I own those portions of the drive, too, and I can arrange them in any way I please; that is one of the fundamental rights of ownership. Copyright ownership does not imbue any expectation that the material in question will never be copied, it only provides a statutory remedy should the holder of the copyright choose to pursue "damages".

Nor is copyright infringement theft; I know of no copyright infringement case in which the original 'owner' is deprived of previously existing property. Copyright infringement is not theft, and I'm getting REAL tired of it being characterized as such.

I'm also getting sick of corporations suing individuals- a "right" of personhood that no corporation should have- for money that the corporation did not make and would never have made. I do indeed believe that the likelihood of the infringer ever in the future actually purchasing the product in question should enter into the copyright infringement case. In other words, if the person accused of copyright infringement can show that they never would have actually purchased the product in question, there should be no suit.

IOW, I'm getting tired of hearing about corporations suing people for money they might have made.

Unless and until we get the old dinosaurs out of Congress (by these I mean the people who have never dealt with computers on the end-user level we chattel do), we will never see sensible computing legislation. To really see how much of a threat technological ignorance can be, go Google 'Palladium' +DRM +Longhorn and see what you come up with.

If I come across as being contemptuous of modern day copyright law, it's because I am. Ninety years is far, far too long for a copyright to be valid, yet we have not only that on the books, but it's now up to 120 years- far beyond the lifetime of almost everyone on the planet. How, exactly, does such a long time period facilitate the entrance of modern day copyrighted works into the public domain?

I predict that there will never be a modern Hollywood movie or commercial piece of computer software entered into the public domain; Both Windows and The Matrix will likely never be the property of the people; corporate powers have usurped our system of eventual free distribution to such an extent that the people have lost the benefits of copyright, leaving us with only the punishments if we violate that system as our reward- unless we're lucky or talented enough to own an officially copyrighted work. However, copyright was never intended to be a permenant cash cow to the copyright holder; the system was created to facilitate the entry of popular works into the public domain, and was set up to first give the opportunity to make money and fame to the holder, and then, after a limited time, to allow it to be freely enjoyed by others. The key word there is free; that concept need not be related to money. Corporations, however, are always concerned about the bottom line first, then the bottom line, and after that, the bottom line; public freedom is antithetical to that. Thus, modern day copyright.

We must revert our copyright laws back to what they originally were. If that were the case, Microsoft Windows 3.1 would likely be nearly public domain today; that won't ever happen under current law. Now, tell me.... doesn't such a situation inherently create a piracy "problem"? We have no expectation that copyrighted works today will ever appear in the public domain; filesharing networks are one of the few possible answers to this dilemma.

No amount of legislation short of restoring a functioning public domain will change that.

[The Sushi Bandit]

6. Very well said!

you make some valid points here.

[mobuto]

8. So what about ink droplets?

Since you own a photocopier or a printing press or a computer printer, why not say that no copyright laws apply to you? After all, you can rearrange ink droplets that you own any which way, right?

Nor is copyright infringement theft; I know of no copyright infringement case in which the original 'owner' is deprived of previously existing property. Copyright infringement is not theft, and I'm getting REAL tired of it being characterized as such.

So you're playing with semantics. If you've invested time and money researching and writing a book, and then some asshole reproduces it on the internet for half the cost or for free, then yes you've been robbed. You own the work - its your right to say if and how its reproduced and disseminated.


I'm also getting sick of corporations suing individuals- a "right" of personhood that no corporation should have- for money that the corporation did not make and would never have made.

What you're basically saying is that because you don't like the way big corporations behave, that they deserve to be robbed. Well, I don't like the way some big corporations behave either, but that doesn't excuse copyright infringement. Would you afford the same contempt to the intellectual property rights of struggling authors?

ON EDIT: I might add that I agree with you that filesharing isn't going to go away, and that the strategy of associations like the MPAA and RIAA really doesn't make a whole lot of sense. I'll also add that US intellectual property laws need to be reformed. But to abolish the concept of intellectual property (established, btw, in the Constitution) is insane.

[Occulus]

10. not semantics

Since you own a photocopier or a printing press or a computer printer, why not say that no copyright laws apply to you? After all, you can rearrange ink droplets that you own any which way, right?

Not really. A photocopier is a totally automated process specifically designed for a single purpose: to copy. The end user has no control over the electrostatic process that arranges the droplets of toner on the paper; that result is predetermined by the user. Not so for a hard disk; I can arrange the patterns of the physical portions of the drive in any way I choose. I can, for example, fill the drive with meaningless garbage just as easily as I can install an operating system or a game. My point is, even though that game or OS is a copyrighted work, that in no way changes or revokes my right to arrange my hard disk's phycial elements in a way I choose. I also do not believe digital licenses ("click yes to accept this license agreement") have any true validity; unlike most people, I feel my signature is required before a contract can be enforced.

So you're playing with semantics. If you've invested time and money researching and writing a book, and then some asshole reproduces it on the internet for half the cost or for free, then yes you've been robbed. You own the work - its your right to say if and how its reproduced and disseminated.

Copyright infringement and theft are, legally, two seperate concepts. Theft implies a deprivation of property; copyright infringement is (or has been until the IMO unconstitutional DMCA) a civil matter. No semantics are necessary; this is AFAIK what our various laws say about the issue.

What you're basically saying is that because you don't like the way big corporations behave, that they deserve to be robbed. Well, I don't like the way some big corporations behave either, but that doesn't excuse copyright infringement. Would you afford the same contempt to the intellectual property rights of struggling authors?

I wasn't meaning that as it pertains to copyright; I meant that as it pertains to corporate personhood. Since (among other things) corporations are persons under the law, they can sue other persons; since corporations have what amounts to an unlimited supply of cash relative to the individual defendant, it becomes a foregone conclusion that the corporation will win. This is why so many of them are able to settle out of court; the people being sued don't have the money to defend. I should have been a lot more clear on that point; ending corporate would in this context not affect a struggling author unless that author is also the owner of a corporation.

I'm not talking about abolishing the concept of intellectual property at all. What I'm saying is that we need to be a lot more mindful about the original purpose of copyright: it was not to protect the profits of the creator of the work that idea of copyright was created, but to protect the right of the public to freely enjoy those works.

edited to add: What I'd really like to see is legislation proclaiming all internet material, present and future, to be public domain. Printed and commercially manufactured works would still be protected; however, we need to start to recognize that once somethig gets on the internet, control of it is lost. That can't be stopped; it's inherent to the technology. Even when one includes DRM, that can be (sometimes quite easily) circumvented; however, since I own my hard drive, I should be able to "mow my grass" over part of that Windows logo in my "yard" and expect no punishment of any kind.

Maybe we need to abolish copyright as it pertains to digital media and replace it with something new. What that something new would or could be, I have no idea, but we need these laws at least to be written by people who know and understand the technology. We need our legislators to lear more about the internet; future Congresses will have that. By the time I'm dead, maybe we'll have people in office who have used filesharing networks for a long time and can thus concoct a fair system to use them to the benefit of the public.

[starroute]

13. For starters, we need to separate copying from derivative works

If I wrote a story and copies of it escaped into the wild, I wouldn't be particularly concerned. I might even see it as free publicity.

But if I wrote a story and it was turned into a major motion picture without my permission or any payment, I'd damned well be concerned.

I think the same thing is true even of corporations. Disney isn't worried about people distributing free copies of "Steamboat Willy." They're worried about losing control of Mickey Mouse.

I think that if we allowed older works to enter the public domain as far as reproduction rights (and also got more relaxed about fair use), we could afford to have fairly restrictive conditions on derivative rights. And separating them in that way might take some of the heat out of the discussions.

[Occulus]

15. Good idea.

I like your argument. Derivitive works are indeed where the money is. Just look at the LOTR films.

[mobuto]

21. The Lord of the Ring films

are hardly representative of all intellectual property works. Outright theft is a problem in and of itself.

[mobuto]

17. Well, why wouldn't you?

I have a friend who publishes and sells technical newsletters to companies, at $5000 a subscription copy. He doesn't sell all that many, but each subscription is worth a tremendous amount to him as you can probably imagine. Because his line of work is so small and so specialized, he makes money, but he doesn't make a whole lot.

If just one person photocopies one of his newsletters, he can lose a hell of a lot of money. This isn't some sort of emotional appeal, this is a real huge cost of doing business. And it happens every day.

[Occulus]

19. Nothing.

Nevermind. I don't want to anticipate the other poster's reply.

[mobuto]

20. I don't understand your point

A photocopier is designed to copy. What it copies may or may not be copyrighted. A computer may or may not be used to copy. But likewise, what it copies, if it copies, may or may not be copyrighted. Just because you own a photocopier or computer, does not give you the right to use it in contravenence of the laws. I see no difference between digital media and print media, except with regards to enforcability. If I spend ten years writing a book and I publish it online, maybe its easier to copy it illegally than if I had published it in print form, but does that make my claim to intellectual ownership any less legitimate?

Moreover I think my parallel with the photocopier or computer printer is perfectly accurate. I can photocopy my face all day long, and I'm doing nothing wrong, just as you can rearrange the bytes on your hard disk into random gibberish. However, if I photocopy something belonging to somebody else, I'm violating their intellectual property rights.

Since (among other things) corporations are persons under the law, they can sue other persons; since corporations have what amounts to an unlimited supply of cash relative to the individual defendant, it becomes a foregone conclusion that the corporation will win.

That may be, but if so, that's hardly limited to cases involving intellectual property -- its a problem that affects the entire legal system uniformly. And from my own experience, I can say that maybe just as often, if not more so, its individuals and small businesses that wind up suing major corporations for copyright infringement, not the other way around.

What I'm saying is that we need to be a lot more mindful about the original purpose of copyright: it was not to protect the profits of the creator of the work that idea of copyright was created, but to protect the right of the public to freely enjoy those works.

Well, I think the two are interconnected. There's a huge body of important intellectual work that exists only because the creators believed that they could support themselves producing it. If they can't support themselves - if their work is infrigned and reproduced, then they will enter other fields, and there will be a chilling effect on expression. I agree that Congress has gone overboard in extending copyrights - the Mickey Mouse rule is insane. But the fundamental concept is sound.

What I'd really like to see is legislation proclaiming all internet material, present and future, to be public domain.

If you do that, you'll drive thousands of websites out of business. Anybody who sells any information over the internet - from pornography to Lexis-Nexis will be forced off the medium. That's crazy, and moreover, its unconstitutional.

[LoZoccolo]

3. Interesting, but it's kind of already happening.

I send a lot of links to articles around to people I know and to chat rooms, and this is a conscious effort to refocus things to stories which I think are important. I'm sure a lot of us here do that.

[starroute]

14. The problem is that stuff online doesn't stay put

A couple of days ago, I posted some quotes from articles on Moqtada al-Sadr that had appeared last year -- but I found that the articles themselves were no longer available online. The information in them was interesting and significant, and I would have loved to have posted longer quotes, but I couldn't do so without violating copyright.

I'm sure that most of us have similar collections of saved articles that cumulatively form an extremely valuable resource. But if we can't share them among ourselves, we are cut off from our collective memory. And there is something terribly wrong about that.

[Occulus]

16. P2P networks don't necessarily work that way.

If I'm sharing a file, it tends to sit in one place long enough for a few other people to get it before I move or delete it. This perpetuates the file's availability ad infinitum; it's still open for others to grab.

In fact, we should be doing this now, with news we feel is important.

[nolabels]

18. You noticed that ?

Truth is like water, it likes to flow to place with the least restriction with most suitable for consumption being that of crystal clear variety

"Arguing with an engineer is like wrestling with a pig in mud, after a while you realize the pig is enjoying it."
(snip)
(snip)
descrips<103> = "Experiments are the only means of knowledge at our disposal. The rest is poetry, imagination -Max Planck";
descrips<104> = "This crazy person wants to turn upside down the whole astronomy, but the Holy Book tells us how Josua told the Sun stay still, not the Earth -Martin Luther";
descrips<105> = "To affirm that the Sun is at the centre of the universe and only rotates on its axis without going from east to west, is a very dangerous attitude and one calculated not only to arouse all Scholastic philosophers and theologians but also to injure our holy faith by contradicting the Scriptures -Cardinal Robert Bellarmino, 17th Century Church Master Collegio Romano, who imprisoned and tortured Galileo for his astronomical works";
descrips<106> = "To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. -Cardinal Robert Bellarmino (during the trial of Galileo)";
(snip)
http://www.miniluv.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=471

[mobuto]

4. One inescapable problem

Is that credibility is important. Newsmax and the Associated Press do not carry the same level of credibility in my book. I don't know every AP reporter, so I usually give an AP byline the benefit of the doubt, which I wouldn't give to most online sources or to UPI, etc.

A story that you can't trust is worthless. Just look at Debka or Indymedia.

[ultramega]

7. Or ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX, MSNBC...

Maybe people will have to rely on resources like FAIR to rate the sources from reliable to less so on down. Of course even these will be partisan, I think the right has Media Research Center and probably others for this purpose.

It's depressing how far apart the rift is in this country and it is growing. Or maybe it was always this way, back to when every town had 2 or three papers coming out at different times of the day and week. Maybe that was better, it gives people more credit to let them read a bunch of stuff then decide for themselves. (But back then with no TV people had to read to be in the know). Whereas we've had so much consolidation that these folks think we really SHOULD get our news from one source (as in all cable news is from one source ultimately) but that was initially for the advertising bucks, with control of content thrown in as a benefit and now the tail is wagging the dog.

Thank holy heaven for the internet.

[Occulus]

11. We need P2P digital video

That would increase my level of trust. Hmmmm.... "the Protest Cam P2P Network"... hmmmmmm......

[smiley_glad_hands]

9. Hopefully technology will stay a couple steps ahead of legislation.

[Occulus]

12. Usually, what happens is

legislation slams the technology, which then leaps far, far ahead of where the legislation was targeted. The legislation thusly fails to work as intended, and we end up with a reactionary mess like the DMCA.

Fortunately for us, technology also stays ahead of the reactionary mess as well.