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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Senator Diane Feinstein Wants to know about the Benefits of P2P
Henry, > So I would like some professional expert opinion to > give her on this issue since it will effect the > copyright inducement bill. Real benefits for > production and professional usage of this technology. I'm sure you'll hear this from many other people, but one thing that I always try to discuss when talking about "P2P" is the difference between general peer-to-peer applications and "illegal music downloads". For example, Voice over IP systems and the regular PSTN telephone system (same application but a different network) are peer-to-peer applications running over electronic networks (sometimes even the same ones). The PSTN is routinely used to commit all sorts of criminal activity, though I think it's easy to see how using the peer-to-peer application (i.e. "calling someone on the telephone") is distinct from committing a criminal act. Regardless, my guess is that the real interest relates to music trading via Internet-based "peer-to-peer" networks (Fastrack, gnutella, IRC, etc), so I'll limit the rest of my thoughts to that. My band is a small, independant band. We don't have a recording contract nor are we interested in one. We're not interested in making money by selling CDs (do any artists really make money selling CDs?) but rather by performing. We want people to listen to our music, to have easy access to it, and we see this goal one of the best ways to generate interest in our band and interest in attending our shows. To accomplish this, we definitely intend to seed the various file-sharing networks with our MP3s as soon as we're done mastering them. We own the copyright to our music and view this as the best avenue to distribute our music and, in the process, generate interest in our band. All other mechanisms for distributing our music will cost us something, usually money, as well as cost our fans. The truth is that if someone has to pay to download our music, then it's likely that they won't since we aren't an established band. Even if some fans were willing to pay to download our songs, we'd rather that they saved the money to spend at our shows and we see giving away our digital recordings as a good way to drive attendence. If this sort of distribution is made illegal, then we'd be forced to go through a third party to distribute our music and this would likely require either signing away certain rights to our music, costing us money, or both. It would also drive up the cost of our music to our fans and hinder our ability to perform. Stretching things a little, I'm also worried that other means for distributing our music would be impacted if music-sharing via peer-to-peer networks is made illegal. For example, if a friend IM's me over AIM and asks for a copy of our MP3s, would that also be illegal? If I run a web server from my home computer, use dynamic DNS to keep my hostname and IP mapping current, register the location of my MP3 with Google and Yahoo so that people will download it from me, will that also be illegal? Would Google, my cable-modem provider, and my dynamic DNS providers be somehow liable for providing a potentially inducing technology and, as such, prevent us from doing it? If neither of these distribution mechanisms would be illegal, what is it about our approach to using Fastrack or gnutella that makes it illegal? Some people are using these networks to distribute content illegally and I'm against that. Just because my band wants to distribute its music this way, doesn't mean that every band has to or should be forced to. However, we see free and simple access to our music over the Internet as a way to generate interest in our band and drive people to our local shows without having to go through an intermediary and without costing us and our fans money. Eric :) Network Engineer, data plumber, and Drummer for The Amazing Poundcakes (http://www.amazingpoundcakes.com)
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