“…Rep. Howard Berman (D-California) introduced his much anticipated peer-to-peer legislation in the House of Representatives on Thursday. The proposal would give copyright owners, from Hollywood studios down to independent musicians, the legal go-ahead to employ a variety of technological measures that would stop computers hooked up to decentralized networks from trading. That would be bad news for users of Gnutella and Kazaa.
“In the interim, it would allow companies like Overpeer, which floods decentralized networks with bogus files, to flourish. In the long run, it also would make any system that doesn’t have a central location — and most open-source networks don’t have a central location — vulnerable to attack. Individuals affected by copyright owners’ attacks would feel the effects of the legislation immediately, as their systems could be assaulted with no notice…
“…Along with making it open season on individual users, open-source programs, and decentralized networks, the bill also gives a free pass to chat applications run by the very media companies that would most benefit from open-source networks being shuttered. AOL Instant Messenger (AIM), MSN Messenger and Yahoo Messenger — which each have specific file-trading options built into their systems that enable millions of users to trade their share without fear of electronic attack — will continue to flourish. The recording industry and movie studios have largely ignored those three chat applications, which have financial ties to the major record studios and movie studios, in their litigation and anti-piracy activities…”
Click here to read the full Wired article.
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