more on KaZaA and Punishment

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2003 08:54:26 -0700
From: Lauren Weinstein <lauren () vortex com>
Subject: Re: [IP] KaZaA and Punishment
To: dave () farber net
Cc: lauren () vortex com

Dave,

First a side note: please reconsider your willingness to remove an e-mail
address simply because someone fears spam.  Unless there is a really good
reason to have their contact information suppressed, being reachable by
e-mail for followup and/or questions should be the "price" of being
published in IP.  Otherwise the item probably shouldn't run and in no case
should include the person's name without an e-mail address -- the latter is
giving credit without accountability.  Removing e-mail addresses on demand
devalues IP significantly.

Onward to the topic at hand.  I strongly feel that the RIAA's "shotgun"
lawsuit approach is wrong-headed, will do them a great deal of
self-inflicted harm in the long run, and does nothing to advance the
reasoned consideration of these issues.

However, Lichtman's argument in the WSJ -- promoting the concept of lawsuits
against the file-sharing services like KaZaA as a solution, misses a key
point.  It is likely (in fact, it's already starting to happen), that most
illicit file trading will move totally underground to heavily-encrypted and
masked open-sourced software and systems that have no centralized targets to
attack with suits.  It will be increasingly difficult to pick out bright
"beacons" of file sharing.  Users' file-sharing activities are becoming more
of a "spread-spectrum" phenomenon, a sort of ersatz "white noise" on the Net
that will be increasingly difficult -- or impossible -- to detect.

This suggests that current approaches to the problem are doomed, at least
as far as technical realities are concerned.

--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lauren () pfir org or lauren () vortex com or lauren () privacyforum org
http://www.pfir.org/lauren
Tel: +1 (818) 225-2800
Co-Founder, PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Co-Founder, Fact Squad - http://www.factsquad.org
Co-Founder, URIICA - Union for Representative International Internet
                     Cooperation and Analysis - http://www.uriica.org
Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy

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