The flaw in the Berman P2P bill...
The flaw in the Berman P2P bill - is not that it is ill-intentioned, says Professor Ed Felten in written testimony to the House Subcommittee. One major problem is its attempt to allow self-help by copyright holders over the Internet through a flawed definition of "peer-to-peer." And the bill, as currently written, authorizes self-help attacks on the World Wide Web itself, and not just illegal music file sharers who use services like KaZaa and Gnutella:
"It seems difficult to redraft the bill to carve out the Web and other legitimate network services, without creating an escape hatch for the types of peer-to-peer networks that the bill[base ']s supporters would like to see covered. The reason for this difficulty is simple: there is really little difference at a technical level between the Web and peer-to-peer systems like KaZaa and Gnutella."
Of course, circumspection suggests that we should avoid regulating an environment that is developing rapidly and is becoming a pervasive influence in everyday life. But cautious wisdom is not the way of the legislator. On the other hand, I think at some point the repeated efforts of well-lobbied lawmakers to shape the Internet, not for the greater good, but purely to help the entertainment industry will complete its Karmic circle and wind up biting them in the ass.
I'm not saying we shouldn't be worried about laws like the Berman bill (we should, because these lawmakers are obviously quicker to accept the views of Michael Eisner than they are to contemplate the technical concerns of Ed Felten), but as the Web's populace of users grows it will be much harder for these politicians to hide their agendas. It's one thing to pass a bill that adds a tax to the sale of home audio recording devices (no one is likely to notice the effect of suchlegislation), but when the Internet starts experiencing problems that can be traced to Content King's trying to use self-help to protect their venal interests you are going to see politicians become much more wary of passing laws just to help Disney boost profits a tad more. [Ernie the Attorney]
Very interesting information that intuitively makes sense.
1:21:58 PM 
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