More on AllPeers: Fear, Uncertainty and Peer-to-Peer
One of the most frequent comments I’ve seen in the past few days regarding AllPeers concerns the potential for legal problems because of the peer-to-peer nature of the software. A few people have gone as far as to suggest that the Mozilla Foundation itself might suffer from the existence of a P2P extension to the Firefox browser. These views, though certainly understandable, are based on fundamental misconceptions about the P2P landscape.
First of all, there are many types of P2P software that allow the transfer of media files between machines. The most obvious are instant messaging clients, which increasingly enable users to send files directly without passing through a server (Skype was a trailblazer in this respect). I’ve never seen anyone suggest that this software is a potential target for legal action, and with good reason. P2P itself is basic enabling technology without which the internet would be very much poorer.
More recently, the United States Supreme Court ruled in MGM vs. Grokster that a company cannot be held accountable for potential copyright infringement committed by its users, upholding the earlier Betamax Decision (which otherwise would have resulted in the banning of the VCR, to the media industry’s great detriment). They did rule that a company can be sued for “actively inducing” its users to infringe on others’ copyrights. This is a vital distinction, as a number of companies based their business model directly on profiting from the illegal copying of commercial media files. While I don’t agree with the way that media companies have thus far reacted to the digital revolution, I think it is reprehensible for a company to try to make money in this way, so I support the Grokster decision wholeheartedly. We don’t and never will base our business model on encouraging copyright infringement on the part of our users. In fact, we hope in the future to contribute actively to developing innovative new ways for consumers to acquire digital content legally, and at a fair price, without succumbing to the oppressive restrictions inherent in today’s DRM technology.
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I agree, peer-to-peer in itself isn’t illegal. Now people will probably use this extension for sharing copyrighted files but that’s their infraction, not AllPeers. As you say, IM clients use file sharing to directly send files from on end to the other and it’s perfectly legal on the clients’ writers part.
Comment by womfalcs7 — 1/4/2006 @ 1:41 am
[…] the social web is either a great idea or the quickest route to an RIAA lawsuit. PS. The AllPeers blog has an entry today about the potential […]
Pingback by Mashable* - Pete Cashmore on Web2.0 » AllPeers - P2P File-Sharing Extension for Firefox — 1/4/2006 @ 4:45 am
[…] eputation of the Mozilla Foundation. AllPeers has addressed this in an entry in their own blog, but I still have to wonder how this is going to […]
Pingback by AllPeers Adds P2P to Firefox @ Alice Hill’s Real Tech News - Independent Tech — 1/4/2006 @ 8:44 am
[…] sofort wieder an die dunkle Seite denkt (eine Antwort darauf gibt’s im AllPeers-Blog Fear, Uncertainty and Peer-to-Peer), sollte man nicht […]
Pingback by Vorsprung durch Webstandards | Firefox als P2P-Zentrale — 1/4/2006 @ 4:03 pm
I have two questions for you: Is AllPeers going to be open source? Also, what is your business model going to be? In other words, if this is a company producing this extension, how does the company plan to make money?
Any time it comes to P2P apps I get rather paranoid, having done technical support and seeing what evil a simple installation of Kazaa can produce.
Comment by Spoom — 1/4/2006 @ 4:46 pm
Spoom - See the previous post regarding open source, busines model, etc. When we say P2P, please think “Skype”, not “Kazaa”. P2P has nothing to do with copyright infringement, spyware, etc. The fact that those guys decided to go that route is all about them, not P2P in general.
Comment by Matt — 1/4/2006 @ 5:00 pm
Ah, sorry, must have missed the bit about full source code being offered. And I realize it’s not something about P2P in general; I’ve had Soulseek installed for a long time now and recommend it to a lot of my friends.
Comment by Spoom — 1/4/2006 @ 5:05 pm
I think that this will accomplish banning of Firefox from corporate PCs. My company forbids use of ANY P2P regardless of intended use or copyright infringement, or lack thereof. Circumvention of attachment size restrictions, while not affecting email gateways, will still soak up bandwidth — plus, it’ll allow an unmonitorable avenue of dissemination of sensitive corporate materials. This saddens me somewhat, as I’ve come to like Firefox better than IE, and now I’ll have to go back.
Comment by Dave — 1/4/2006 @ 5:22 pm
Dave - why would your company ban Firefox and not just the AllPeers extension, if they are so strict? Your scenario is a bit like banning Windows because people can use it to run Kazaa (or whatever other naughty P2P program).
In any case, I hope that in the longer term the corporate uses of AllPeers (for workgroups and the like) will be so compelling that companies like yours will rethink their restrictive policies.
Comment by Matt — 1/4/2006 @ 5:31 pm
AllofMP3.com: bursting the mould?
AllofMP3 doesn’t officially support the distribution of files downloaded from its site, but one of its great attractions is that, because it leaves this decision to the end-user, no DRM is imposed. Its encoding possibilities are another excellent feat…
Trackback by Preoccupations — 1/5/2006 @ 11:54 am
[…] ng gaat het duren voordat film/muziekmaatschappijen er een hap uit willen nemen”. Op de blog van Allpeers […]
Pingback by BlueAce » Archief » De killer app van Firefox heet AllPeers — 1/5/2006 @ 12:02 pm