I was in the pub last night, and
a guy asked me for a light for his cigarette. I suddenly realized
that there was a demand here and money to be made, and so
I agreed to light his cigarette for 10 pence, but I didn't
actually give him a light, I sold him a license to burn his
cigarette. My fire-license restricted him from giving the
light to anybody else, after all, that fire was my property.
He was drunk, and dismissing me as a loony, but accepted my
fire (and by implication the licence which governed its use)
anyway. Of course in a matter of minutes I noticed a friend
of his asking him for a light and to my outrage he gave his
cigarette to his friend and pirated my fire! I was furious,
I started to make my way over to that side of the bar but
to my added horror his friend then started to light other
people's cigarettes left, right, and centre! Before long that
whole side of the bar was enjoying MY fire without paying
me anything. Enraged I went from person to person grabbing
their cigarettes from their hands, throwing them to the ground,
and stamping on them. Strangely the door staff exhibited no
respect for my property rights as they threw me out the door.
--Ian Clarke
[posted on Gnutella.com]
In this section, we'll step back
and consider -- as a positive matter -- the state of the copyright
industry (i.e, "content creation") in eCommerce, and to
what extent the present legal rules are helping or hindering our
transation to a new economy of content.
Gnutella & Related Technologies
What
is Gnutella? Gnutella News (2001).
Eytan
Adar and Bernardo A. Huberman, Free Riding on Gnutella, First
Monday, October 2000.
'No
limits' browser planned, BBC News, Sunday, 6 May, 2001, 11:16
GMT 12:16 UK
Fred
Von Lohmann, Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and Copyright Law after
Napster, Electronic Frontier Foundation (February 2001)
The Future
RedHerring,
The State of Digital Entertainment (series), Redherring.com,
August 15-30, 2001.
Beth
Pinsker, Wary of a Video Napster, Hollywood Plots a TV Crackdown,
Inside, 1/3/2001 17:17
Kid
Rock Starves to Death: MP3 Piracy Blamed, The Onion (2000).
Lawrence
Lessig, Just Compensation, The Industry Standard,
Apr 09 2001 12:00 AM PDT
David
Post, His Napster's Voice (May 2001).
William
Fisher, Digital Music: Problems and Possibilities (October
10, 2000).
N O T E S &
Q U E S T I O N S
1. What does the rise of systems
such as Gnutella say about the efficicacy of the recent attempts
to control the online distribution of copyrighted music? Is it fruitless?
Or can copyright holders still win?
2. The Von Lohmann piece suggesta
number of critera that software developers can do in the wake of
the Napster decision to reduce or avoid liability? Do you think
these steps make the predictions of doom and gloom by some of the
commentators seem less likely? If software developers use these
techniques, what recourse will record companies have? Will the subsequent
developments (i.e., to address the limits of the Napster opinioin)
have a positive or negative effect on eCommerce and the 'net generally?
3. How do you think the future of
online content is shaping up? What are the primary concerns we should
be thinking about now? Should Congress step in? If so, what should
it do?