I know p2p file sharing programs COULD be used legitimately but are they currently in anyway?
err, any way.
I suppose freeware, as well as getting a band’s name out there.
Perhaps even speeches…
Anything that’s free.
Oh, maybe “updates” for computer programs.
It can be used to share files whose owners gave permission to let them be shared freely. However, there is no way to check for permissions and to restrict it to those files only.
[ul][li]Infoworld: Pushing P2P at business[/li][li]ComputerUser: New P2P means business[/li][li]Business users of P2P technologies (PDF)[/li]ComputerWeekly: P2P & business special[/ul]
It can dissemenate key data in a far more efficient manner than conventional means. Just imagine somebody wanted to share something huge like the Human Genome, or a Windows Service Patch. If they just chucked it on a server or 2, it would be painfully slow for the thousands that want to get it. If they chucked it on 100 servers, it would be horrendously expensive. Instead, what they can do is chuck it on a well regulated P2P service and the effective download speed for each user will increase exponentially as more users gain complete copies and start sharing.
The exact contours of the Fair Use doctrine of copyright law (which says that some relatively minor copying of copyrighted material is legal even without the permission of the copyright holder or payment of royalties) are unclear; it is possible that at least some file-sharing of copyrighted material is legal under this doctrine.
–Cliffy
Assuming that we are only talking about ways in which a Kazaa-like system could be 100% legal…
Essentially, in order for a massive distribution system like that to ensure that only public domain files are distributed, or only files which have the owner’s permission are distributed, you need one of two things:
- A 100% honest userbase that shows due diligence in respecting IP rights. Of course, even for people that know what they are doing, it can be very hard to determine if some items are in the public domain or not, or what the implications are of a media as porous and multinational as the Internet are.
or,
- A large, central registry which tracks all “legitimate” files by some sort of checksum, derived key, encrypted flags, or other combination, and which either does not allow or deletes all “non-allowed” files.
However, there is little to no impetus for anyone doing this. Although Kazaa and file sharing themselves are not illegal in principle, in practice they are used 99.99% of the time for illegal, or quasi-legal file sharing.
Ok, I can understand the legal difficulties with music, and movies…but how does that jive with TV shows? I used to download Stargate episodes from Morpheus, not because I didn’t watch the shows every week, but just to have them so I could watch any time. Is that really any different from some of the tape swaping clubs that are in existance? How does the new copywrite act cover things like TV shows…are they all still copywrited?
No one ever said that tape-sharing clubs were legal, AFAIK. However, the fact that file-sharing reduces costs to almost zero while at the same time making it much more convenient to share material with uncounted legions of Gnutellites (rather than a half-dozen of your friends in the same town) illustrates that these are two different animals and so the answer might be different.
–Cliffy
Yes, they absolutely are “still” copyrighted - they never “lost” their copyright by being tapable or recordable by anyone. And yes, barring explicit permission given by the owners of the shows, it is illegal to distribute weekly TV programmes over P2P.
Are “tape swapping” clubs illegal? I do not know. My suspicion is “yes”, based on the fact that you are not simply time-shifting for your own personal use, and you are not re-showing it explicitly for your own personal use. You are instead distributing a copy of a copyrighted work.
But here’s the thing that gets me - so long as all commercial content is included with the tape, I don’t see why there should be any regulation against downloading or trading episodes. The point is that you are still viewing the advertising which pays for the creation and distribution of the art, and thus there really should be little objection at all to that. However, copyright is not just about money - it’s about control. And that may be why people sometimes do crack down on distributing televised works even if they do contain the advertising.
Ok, thanks Cliffy, Anthracite…If pushed, I’d have to admit that I probably knew that in the back of my head. Just didn’t want to admit it. Like most people, I am guilty of the “well, they can’t mean me stealing” but, in fact I’m as guilty as the mp3 swappers. Guess I’ll just have to get the stupid video capture working on my computer, so I can archive them myself.
What irks me is that I’d buy the stupid things if they were available. I have season 1 and 2 already. But because they want to milk every last dollar from the syndication of the shows, it takes forever for them to be released. Heck, look at ST:tng. It’s been off the air for what…7 years of so?..More? and they’re just now releasing the last season on DVD. I suspect that is one reason why most people want to swap television programs. They just don’t want to wait 5 or more years to get them. After all, the quality of what you’re going to download won’t match what you can get if you buy legitimatly.
I was unable to download the Red Hat Linux disk images from any of the official or mirror sites when 8.0 came out, but I got it nice and fast from the Gnutella network. I don’t know the details of the distribution license, but I’d be surprised if Red Hat minded the lessening of traffic of their websites, where it was freely distributed anyway.
I think Red Hat et al are concerned that people are getting the:
-
Most current version, or that the version they get is really what it says it is,
-
Is not hacked to contain a virus, trojan, or other malicious code
-
Has all the proper release notes and documentation accompanying it.
For these reasons, IIRC Linux distributors are typically not happy to see it distributed in this way. In fact, I know a few shareware/freeware distributors who also are concerned about issues 1-3 above.
P2P file sharing is, in theory, one of the most efficient ways to download files. Downloading a small chunk of the file from many sources that are near to you on the network is better than hammering an FTP server until you grab a free spot so you can download all 100MB of the latest Counter-Strike patch. The problem of modified distribution can be solved by having a CRC or similar verification that the piece of the file you are downloading is identical to the original.
Anthracite, did you hear that specifically from a Red Hat source?
In any case, all those problems are solved by using a “magnet” link/URL. Red Hat can make a special magnet URL with a hash code, and when a user clicks the link the request goes to his or her P2P client (it must be one that supports the concept, like Shareaza). The client then searches for files with that particular hash. If the link is correctly made, this ensures that the file is what Red Hat wants you to get, and not hacked or changed in any way.
You can use the “magnet” concept with KaZaa, with the help of a program called Sig2Dat (which is included with KaZaa Lite).
This sounds like an invalid assumption to me. If my network is broadcasting a show, I can make money from:
- The commercials shown during the original broadcast
- The commercials shown during any repeat
- The money made from syndicating the show
- The money made from selling the show on DVD / video
etc…
Distributing the TV show with the advertisements for a particular broadcast does not mean that the people watching it are “paying” for the show.
OK, I see what you are getting at. But what I’m thinking of is the case of a single-action download/viewing. For example - I missed the Buffy Premiere. I downloaded it from pepperlandgirl, who had ripped it from TV to MPEG for me (actually, she uploaded it to one of my secret servers, but same difference). I watched it, saw all the commercials, and then deleted it, as I didn’t need a 200+ MB file sitting around.
What I did was, in my mind, no different than having a friend videotape it and give me the tape when I got back from Europe. But…according to the RIAA, what I did with the MPG was “illegal”, and AFAIK borrowing the tape might be as well.
Now, in the broader example - there would be a problem if massive databses of say, all Buffy episodes were kept out there in P2P - even with commericals. And as I said in my other post - copyright is about control, not just money.
Revtim - I have heard it from numerous Linux developers whom I know, but not from someone working at Red Hat. The problem of control of sourcing is still there, whether or not they even know of it.
The hash code idea, while good for handling benign use, is unfortunately not hard to defeat in the case of malicious use.
Example? It seems to be the worst case is that a client is maliciously made to transmit bad data with the correct hash, but wouldn’t the receiving client simply detect this when it calculates the hash of the final complete download? The download is flagged as corrupt and thrown out.
Also, I believe the tiger-tree hash system might prevent even that by being able to hash each incoming chunk of data. I’m not sure though, I need to investigate that system more.