Shawn Fanning nominated for the ACM Lawler Award [ip]

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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To: Nina.Bhatti () hp com
Cc: Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>, gnu () toad com
Subject: Nominating Shawn Fanning for the ACM Lawler Award
In-reply-to: <6.0.0.22.2.20031021232341.0223a308 () mail well com>
Date: Thu, 13 Nov 2003 00:09:26 -0800
From: John Gilmore <gnu () toad com>

Candidate for award:
  Shawn Fanning
  co-founder of Napster
  (I don't have his current contact information handy.)

Why: Mr. Fanning, while a freshman student, built an application that
  for the first time since Internet e-mail was invented, energized
  millions of people to use the end-to-end capabilities of the
  Internet to create a huge social benefit.  His Napster was "the
  ultimate music server", offering the public a copy of every song
  ever recorded, instantly accessible -- through the cooperative
  efforts of the music lovers themselves.  More out-of-print, rare,
  and otherwise unavailable music was suddenly made available to the
  public than at any other time in history.  Also, virtually all
  in-print music was also made available, at a distribution cost
  orders of magnitude lower than in previous systems.  Napster offered
  to pay royalties to musicians and music companies, but was rebuffed.
  Quirks in copyright law and in the architecture of the system made
  it possible for the predecessor music distribution oligopoly to
  strangle Napster in court, despite its obvious social utility.  But
  its energy lives on in dozens of subsequent thriving million-scale
  peer-to-peer information sharing networks.  And Shawn Fanning's
  energy lives on in the hearts, minds, and computers of more than 60
  million music sharers.  This rabble now refuses to merely nibble the
  hobbled dribble of hardscrabble babble cobbled together by the
  squabbling rubble of the music oligopoly.

  I think this nomination goes in the category of "creative research
  concerning intellectual property issues".  A side benefit is
  "application of computers or computing techniques to problems of
  developing countries".

Nominator:
  John Gilmore
  PO Box 170608
  San Francisco, California, USA  94117
  +1 415 221 6524       voice
  gnu () toad com

Others who agree with the recommendation:
  None yet, but I'm cross-posting to politech (Declan willing), partly
  to inspire other interesting nominations, and partly so those who
  agree can email their support for Shawn Fanning's nomination to
  Nina.Bhatti () hp com.
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