Digitalwall: Crime and Punishment of P2P (1) Liberalization of Power

Circumstances looked very unfavorable to the development of P2P.

[+] P2P: the stolen fire

In Greek mythology, Prometheus went against Zeus's will and stole fire for men. Men then knew about fire. As a punishment, Zeus had Prometheus bound to Mount Caucasus, where an eagle would devour his ever-regenerating liver day after day.

Zeus had his reason not to agree to give fire to men: Men should keep a simple life; too much enjoyment of ease and comfort was not good to them. Fire brought benefits, but also disturbances. A single spark could start a prairie fire. It was not unlikely that men could eventually get hurt.

In March 2000, AOL employee Justin Frankel and another engineer Tom Pepper released the source code of Gnutella, the first ever P2P file exchange software in the world.

Overwhelmed by the shock waves of the bust of Internet bubble, the public did not pay too much attention to the news at that time, or they just did not quite grasp the significance of this epochal event. Now, after five years, the term P2P has practically become a byword of free MP3 and free movie downloads.

P2P, a completely de-centralized file exchange structure, was born to be a rebel, bearing the predestined mission to resist domination. It is the stolen fire, being brought to the cyber world.

[+] P2P is against centralization

The concept of the first-generation Internet is client-server based. For example, a website Yahoo! has been set up; a user can send a request for a session from her/his own browser to the website server, and the server will responds and send a page to the browser. In this case, the website is the Server, and the browser the Client.

Consequently, browsers all over the world call on Yahoo!, and a new media hegemony thus comes into being. The online users may not be aware of it, but it is exactly centralization. It implies that Yahoo! may control what you can and can't see. Apart from this, it may easily become the target of attacks due to its conspicuousness.

However, P2P structure is different. It makes each of P2P users the Server. Anyone who has a computer with Internet connection can put any software for others to access and capture. Anyone can be the Server and the Client at the same time.

When you want to look for a file, you need only to give a search command, and the P2P software will automatically go find out who has this file in her/his computer. You can select the item to be downloaded on the returned list, and then a direct link between the two computers will be set up to transmit the selected file, with no third party involved.

This is a complete delegation of power. The power to distribute content returns to the masses, with no authority in between to screen files and documents and decide which to be published.

[+] Men's abuse of fire

This is the spirit of P2P, or Peer to Peer. When the evil dominator wants to punish the source of the distributed files, he can't even identify the culprit. The attempt to eradicate the P2P software is even more unlikely. With hundreds of thousands of engineers volunteer to develop such kind of software, how can it be eradicated?

This is not to say that these inventors develop P2P software with a political agenda. Yet, such software structure has very soon won the support from liberals; a group of fervent developers continue to contribute to the improvement of such software, and the number of users continues to grow.

What exactly are the files worth to be exchanged on the Net? To the end, most of the people use P2P software to grab free music files. Free MP3's have been running wild since the emergence of the internet; now they are getting wilder. Some people assert: the music industry has been dominated by the big five record companies; we are to liberate music!

Now it comes the day when Zeus's concern becomes a reality: Men are distracted; they use P2P for commercial purposes. People start to set up companies specifically for the development of P2P software, and furthermore publicize that the software can be used for exchange of free music files. The gods are enraged; they want to punish the men and they send legal letters.

Business entities conduct development of P2P software and charge users for the software, and some companies are even making big money out of it. Now the record companies find their targets to file charges. Such lawsuits are common occurrences. Software companies and music industry giants stick to their own arguments and show no sign of concession.

[+] Circumstances turn against P2P

The focus of controversy is that, the software per se is but a tool, and it is indeed not within the control of software developers as to what files are to be transmitted via the software by users. But, in all fairness, everyone knows what users are going to do with it. As the popularity of broadband grows, the transmission involves from free music to free movies.

Is it against the law that one buys a legal music CD, turning the music into MP3 files and sharing them via P2P software with other P2P users? According to the existing copyrights law, yes! There is no gray area in between. Should a judge find such deeds guilty, s/he is but acting by law.

Some people argue that record companies are making extravagant profits from their music business, and that it is unfair to put all the blame on consumers. Overbearing record companies may be hideous, yet it does not justify consumers' illegal resistance.

Since the past, software companies have been calling on government not to oppress the development of new technologies. P2P is new, and is indeed a rising star. A sentence of guilt may very well suffocate innovation. However, the court is getting less patience to such an argument.

June 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court made an unfavorable decision against Grokster, a P2P service provider, finding that Grokster encouraged its users to distribute illegal music files. Since then for several months, RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) had been going around and sending legal letters. Soon, many P2P websites close their operation.

The fire of revolution started within the Internet media AOL in March 2000 had gradually been put off during its institutionalization process. The circumstances looked very unfavorable to the development of P2P, especially in terms of its use for exchanging music and movie files. (
2005/09/25 - By Digitalwall.com - Way to
China Internet/Telecom )