[IP] NY Times on the Regulation of P2P Technology
Begin forwarded message:
From: "Peter D. Junger" <junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: August 30, 2004 8:50:49 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave@xxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: NY Times on the Regulation of P2P Technology
Here's an unsigned editorial in today's New York Times that may
interest, and perhaps irritate, some subsribers to IP.
T he legal battles over file-sharing are usually construed as a
fight
over intellectual property rights, plain and simple. On one side
are
copyright owners, including songwriters and artists as well as
the
major recording companies and movie studios. On the other side,
a
handful of advocacy groups and a legion of file-sharers bent
on
nothing more than outright theft of copyrighted music and movies.
The
short title of a recent appeals decision says it
all:
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer v. Grokster.
But the broader issue is the distribution of information.
Software
like Grokster creates a network of independent Internet users who
can
access one another's computer files without going through a
central
server. (Napster maintained a central server, which made it
legally
liable in very different ways.) Grokster can certainly be used to
swap
music illegally. But it can also be used to exchange electronic
copies
of books already in the public domain, transcripts of
Congressional
hearings or any number of other legitimate types of information.
Much
like a VCR that does not distinguish between a pirated tape and
one
legally acquired, the technology does not care what is shared. It
is
impossible to strike down software like Grokster for its use
in
illegal file-sharing without also destroying its capacity for
legal
and socially beneficial activities.
This distinction lies at the heart of a recent Ninth Circuit
appeals
court decision, which upheld a ruling in favor of Grokster and
against
an army of corporate copyright owners. This decision does not
make
illegal file-sharing legal. But it implicitly raises a
question
central to most copyright battles. Is society better served
by
restricting or even prohibiting new technologies to protect the
rights
of copyright owners or is there a greater good in the widest
possible
exchange of information? The resolution lies somewhere in the
middle.
Finding it, as the court acknowledges, is properly left to Congress.
These are thorny issues indeed. Freedom of information is at the
root
of American democracy, and yet every day we see that freedom
being
compromised, controlled and limited. The Grokster decision is a
ruling
in favor of keeping our bets open about which technologies will
turn
out to serve our freedoms best.
--
Peter D. Junger--Case Western Reserve University Law School--Cleveland,
OH
EMAIL: junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx URL: http://samsara.law.cwru.edu
NOTE: junger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx no longer exists
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