Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: Dispatches from the Napster and Gnutella front

Author:Robert Cassidy
Posted:4/21/2000; 12:53:33 AM
Topic:Dispatches from the Napster and Gnutella front
Msg #:16486 (In response to 16464)
Prev/Next:16485 / 16487

I was discussing this topic just this evening with one of my colleagues (we work for UC Irvine and don't block Napster - oddly enough the UC system was spared from the lawsuit which is curious given that we're the king of bandwidth and with 200,000 students, represent nearly an order of magnitude more students than the other universities named).

I think that Napster is pot for the new decade. It delivers a service for which there is a very high demand (low-cost, per-song electronic acquisitions) and for which there is very little interest in enforcement.

It won't matter how much the labels sue, how many firewalls they force to go up - like stopping a small plane flying pot in from South America, there's always another distribution channel that will develop. If the universities block it, the ISPs won't... If they do, it'll eventually come out of south america as well...

The universities are in a tough spot. We'd prefer to support such products as they would be fantastic tools in the distribution of legal materials and we tend to strongly encourage free speech. The universities (especially public ones) will stand and support this position. We don't support copyright violation (after all, we fought hard for this point wrt faculty materials) but we feel that you need to actually target the violators, not cast a wide net over anyone that might be a violator.

The people will determine the degree to which they will allow being policed. Push too hard and you won't last long in office. This will be short-lived and the RIAA will have to back down.

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