Comment: File sharing is peerless

Posted on 2 Aug 2005 at 15:27

The only time I was caught for speeding, it never occurred to me to plead guilty on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Reaching over 70mph was quite an achievement in itself at a time when I had a car fit for a student. Nevertheless, perhaps I could have deflected the blame onto Fiat, which was surely aware its creation was capable of breaking the speed limit when going downhill on the M3.

However, there was no test case for blaming car manufacturers for what drivers do with their vehicles. But, shortly we'll see prosecutions against software developers for the illegal activities of their subscribers.

Peer-to-peer (P2P) computing is once again being cast as a slur on the Internet, following the US Supreme Court's surprise ruling that networks such as Grokster and Morpheus could be blamed for providing the vehicle for widespread copyright infringement.

Unlike many people, I believe the case for the defence is tenuous. Although the biggest selling point for Grokster, as advertised on its website, is 'Publishing - share your music and movies with the rest of the world', we all know whose music the majority of people were really sharing - that of the record labels, artists and music producers.

Being a decent, law-abiding citizen (except when I'm in the car), I stopped using such services a long time ago. But as the use of these things has failed to drive the world's top labels into the ground, I was generally in support of the companies that allowed file swapping. I can't help but support the technology on the basis of the central role it has had on attracting new people to the Internet. It's also provided the incentive for a new wave of innovators to develop applications that connect people from all over the world.

Should the lawsuits go ahead, and traditional peer-to-peer tools be deemed illegal in the US (and remember, this is only for the US for now), it will be sadly referred to as the end of an era. But we must also welcome it as the beginning of a new one, a time when P2P is lauded as the vastly useful tool that it is.

No longer will we see 'file swapping' in news headlines and expect to read on to find examples of how it's killing the music and movie industries.

Instead, we can expect to learn about an innovative new application that has benefits for copyright owners and consumers alike. But to do that, we need to encourage a greater understanding of that potential.

It's not just the perceived illegality of P2P that's likely to frighten off new users; it's also the threat of downloading viruses and spyware. A lot of misinformation also spreads on the Net, with P2P the perfect scapegoat for those who fear change.

The All Party Internet Group's Derek Wyatt MP recently slammed the BBC for its plans for a Creative Archive from which people will be able to download clips of factual programmes. It was reported that the plan would infringe on copyright owners' future revenue streams. It wasn't reported that the BBC isn't expecting to offer the service via P2P in the first phase, nor was it mentioned that the broadcaster has been working on watertight digital rights management for when its P2P strategy is up and running.

The BBC is one of a number of content owners embracing file swapping, having spotted that it offers the perfect way to distribute large files around the Internet at low cost. With people increasingly using the Net to access rich media files, the cost of delivery becomes a barrier to content providers as demand surges. So it makes economic sense to offload that burden onto customers. Media companies would only have to make content available to a few users for a short period, and before long there's an enormous network of connected members delivering it on their behalf.