[ NNSquad ] "Captain Kangaroo" on File Sharing

[Lauren Weinstein <lauren@vortex.com>]

Allow me to channel Bob Keeshan for a few minutes.  How might
Captain Kangaroo have explained the "file sharing" controversy?

Setting aside the technical details and application specifics, what
P2P really is of course is ... sharing.  Sharing is good.  Though if
you share something that you do not have the right to share, you
risk a visit by the RIAA, MPAA, and similar parties, along with
their handcuff-toting cohorts.

But sharing materials to which you have the right to share is legal,
period.  And remember, sharing is good.  There is no requirement in
logic or law that the originator of material to be shared must
personally distribute it everywhere, or bear the cost of
distributing that material to the world.  Once a shared item is in
the possession of others, they are usually free to independently
decide with whom they'd like to further share it.  It's theirs to
share now.  And sharing remains good.

There are many ways to share.  Before "formal" P2P ever existed,
computer-based sharing took place via BBS systems, UUCP, and even
e-mail list server responders.  FTP and HTTP are other ways to
share, but of course most ISPs at least in theory forbid the running
of servers by most consumers, and sometimes enforce this by blocking.
They don't want you to share.  Even when there's lots of bandwidth,
even when you pay for a big upstream pipe, they really would prefer
that you stick with the conventional "broadcast" model.  They don't
seem to like sharing, do they?

But people still want to share.  They want to share ideas, they want
to share files, they want to share resources, they want to share CPU
cycles.  Who knows, someday there may be search engines that operate
as vast shared applications rather than concentrated at massive data
centers!  "Google" running on the Treasure House PC!  Wouldn't that
be fun?

An earlier poster implied that a possible response to encrypted
sharing might be banning encryption except for really, truly
*important* things, like dealing with ... money.  The Captain doesn't
think that idea is going to fly farther than a water-filled
ping pon... uh, the little white balls that get paddled back and
forth across a Net.

There will always be technologies that disrupt existing methodologies
and upset ongoing business plans.  We can argue specifics of
protocols and topologies, and try to tune our applications to be as
efficient and yes, technologically "polite" as possible.  

But if there's one lesson that history teaches us on this score,
it's that trying to suppress the march of such technologies is as
futile as trying to stop the Earth from turning by blowing really,
really hard.  

And now, it's time for Tom Terrific.  Today's episode:
"Crabby Appleton Starts an ISP!"

--Lauren--
NNSquad Moderator
(apologies to readers who don't know Captain Kangaroo 
from a Koala bear ...)