The War On File Sharing Nabs Its First Prisoners

from the and-the-impact? dept

Now that the government has declared the "war on file sharing" to be the equivalent to the wars on drugs, terrorism and corruption we're going to see if it's about as effective as those other "wars." To start it off, they're now parading two men who have agreed to plead guilty to "conspiracy to commit felony copyright infringement" for running a file sharing hub. Of course, it seems unlikely that the others in the unauthorized content distribution network are quaking in their boots right now. These guys clearly did something illegal, and now will be punished for it. However, if the goal is really to stop unauthorized file sharing, it's tough to see how this is going to have much of an impact.
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  1. identicon
    Bystander, 20 Jan 2005 @ 3:46am

    If not for movies, then what?

    I don't know a single person who has used file-sharing services for anything other than downloading movies, music, and the odd funny video.

    I am not saying it doesn't happen, but lets be realistic. If more people use a tool for copyright infringement, then watch for that tool to be restricted, or outlawed.

    Try to go buy a bong, and explain that you really do have a legal use for it. Yeah sure...

    link to this | view in thread ]

  2. identicon
    Tim, 20 Jan 2005 @ 6:08am

    Re: If not for movies, then what?

    I've long-since said that the way to thwart this kind of thing is to flood people's mind-space with legal alternatives. I can and *do* use bittorrent for pulling ISOs of linux distributions, for example. We do need more examples of legitimate use of protocols and file-formats to expose this ludicrosity.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  3. identicon
    DV Henkel-Wallace, 20 Jan 2005 @ 9:12am

    Re: If not for movies, then what?

    I don't know a single person who has used file-sharing services for anything other than downloading movies, music, and the odd funny video.
    Give me a call and get aquainted. I've only used bittorrent for Linux distros. Other than that I've only used FTP to get software. I'm not sure I would know how to find a film to download, much less how to view it.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  4. identicon
    Loraan, 20 Jan 2005 @ 9:32am

    No Subject Given

    I use Bittorrent to share copies of my music, live recordings of local bands (that I've made with the bands' permission), and ripped copies of albums that are no longer commercially available (with the bands' permission). Bittorrent means that people can download the large files without worrying if their transfer gets interrupted. Unfortunately, there aren't enough seeds (other than me) to realize Bittorrent's bandwidth advantages.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  5. identicon
    King Silly, 20 Jan 2005 @ 9:37am

    Outlawing technology

    It is foolish to try to outlaw a technology, because of a mis-use of it, or a mis-application of it.

    Shoul we outlaw machine lathes, because they are used in the production of machine guns, which are a restricted weapon in Canada?

    Why don't we go a step further and outlaw the practice of making a connection between two IP addresses.

    It is stupid, and I just wish they would all shut up.

    link to this | view in thread ]

  6. identicon
    Anonymous Coward, 20 Jan 2005 @ 10:51am

    No Subject Given

    You forgot poverty! Everyone always forgets about our success with the War on Poverty: there's no more poor people, uh, hang on a sec...

    link to this | view in thread ]


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