29 Sep 08 The Legality of Peer to peer software

Following a read of the Electronic Fronteir Foundation (EFF) press releases http://www.eff.org/press/releases I was confused as to why it wasn’t easier to legislate against piracy, specifically peer to peer network misusage.

It’s crucial that courts continue to protect emerging technologies that are capable of substantial lawful uses, even if they also can be used in less acceptable ways, said EFF Senior Intellectual Property Attorney Fred von Lohmann.”

Well obviously. No one is suggesting that someone comes up with a definition of a peer to peer network and then criminalize taking part in, running, or conspiring to run such network. Why not just define more clearly how peer to peer is often used for piracy and legislate against that?

“In Arista v. Lime Wire, the recording industry plaintiffs seek to hold Lime Wire liable for acts of copyright infringement by users of its software.”

By all means target the Companies who host the networks that pirate users operate on. Obviously no well known service such as Lime Wire ever actively promotes piracy though. On a network however where any user can upload or download any software, videos, music and pictures what do you think is going to happen? Surely without needing to legislate against peer to peer technology itself, it’s clear that the network operators are failing to uphold their duty of care to their Clients in providing a reasonable level of protection.

The average end user who downloads pirate music or videos often doesn’t even consider that what he’s doing is actually illegal, let alone making a conscious decision to ignore it, after all, it’s so simple and easy with some desktop software and a choice of anything to search for and download.

Network operators and software developers should be required to inform the users of their duties in ensuring that they avoid downloading pirate material in simple and proper terms. Uploads should be examined and changed to make the pirating process harder. Software guards should be put in place against piracy and searches for obviously pirated material should be filtered. With that in place as a reasonably responsible approach from the operators, users that actively ignore and bypass or attempt to bypass such safeguards to upload or download pirate material can be targeted.

Tags: eff, electronic fronteir foundation, file sharing, limewire, p2p, peer to peer, piracy, The Legality of Peer to peer software

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