Journal Journal: P2P idea
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993297
Courts ordered Verizon to hand over gobs of Internet logs to the RIAA
Verizon vice president Sarah Deutsch said in response to the ruling: "It opens the door for anyone who makes a mere allegation of copyright infringement to gain complete access to private subscriber information without the due process protections afforded by the courts."
I've often felt that the underworld is the seedbed of change. It is the place where anyone can test the rules of society on there own criteria. On this the 30th anniversary of Row v Waid, it seam appropriate to point out that Row v Waid would never had happened without the "Back Alley Abortions" that came before. Rules are broken before they are improved. In a society based on imperfect rules, improving those rules only comes after a number of individuals have broke them and determined the worth of changing those rules.
I see great worth in file sharing. The free flow of information gives control over ideas to those who can think as opposed to who can acquire the most patents or gained control the greatest proportion of the publishing industry. File sharing gives the underworld a grater ability to test the theory of freedom information.
What this court decision shows is that P2P in it's present form is still vulnerable. People care little for companies being sued, or for loss of privacy. What we need is to force the RIAA to do more. Only when they have to sue all of us, will there be enough of us to revolt. The next generation of P2P must be designed to force that issue. Here are some ideas that may help.
Spread the blame. Fair use has allowed us to make copies of small portions of works from libraries. You can copy a few pages of a book without violating copyright law. Well what if A made copies of page 1-10, and B made copies of 11-20 and so on until A-Z had made a copy of the entire book. No one individual violated fair use and so couldn't be prosecuted individually. I'm not a lawyer yet, but I would think the only way you could prosecute A-Z is as co-conspirators. If that is true then the RIAA would be forced to sue 26 people instead of one at a time. They could no longer arbitrarily bully one of us to make an example for the rest of us as they are trying to do now.
Now using a computer network we could store songs in thousands of parts and reassemble them perfectly at will. Furthermore we could encrypt each part making it impossible to prove what the content is without breaking the encryption, a violation of DMCA. It would give me great pleasure to use the DMCA against the very same corporations who lobbied for it. Headline RIAA sues ITSELF for it's own violation of DMCA.
Another advantage of breaking up individual files is that then the network could react to changing demands. What happens now is that a small number of users provide the initial file it's only when someone else has downloaded the complete file that it becomes easier for the rest of the community to download the file. But this way would allow partial uploads to be useful to the entire network. A slow node could upload the file to several faster nodes that then provide each part to other nodes, etc, etc, etc. It would work like a multicast socket of sorts, but with the added benefit of having the information stored at each node.
Analysis between multiple files could be used in compression algorithms to make the network more efficient. The completion could also be the basis for the encryption motioned above. Distributed computing power culled from the network could be used to test a new generation CPU intensive compression algorithms.
Another thing we must do is to bring filesharing into the daily lives of all Internet users. It's often suggested on Slashdot that before the Slashdot effect takes down a server, that Slashdot should provide a mirror or two to keep the take the load of the original site. Integrating filesharing with the web server and web browser could easily handle that. As you browse you could share your web browser's cash. If someone else comes across a site that has been slashdoted, a browser plug in would simply ask the filesharing network for a copy of the web browser cash of the last person to successfully view the site. This would give filesharing a more legitimate purpose and would improve it's public image. We need to work at breaking the ignorant publics view that fileshareing is simply a bunch of college kids pirating music at the expense of artists and the recording industry.
Filesharing is not about trading music. It's about the free flow of ideas and information. You may remember the collage bookstore. Overpriced textbooks have kept us from throwing that much needed pizza party during midterms for too long. We need to copy our textbooks and put them online, into the fileshareing arena where they are safe from the greedy hands of academic publishers and the school bookstore. What a world it would be if information were both free and organized.
I'm often frustrated at how difficult it is to get the kind of information easily available in a textbook. Laziness keeps us back you know. If it was right there at my filesharing fingertips I could get a pretty darned good education from the comfort of my computer terminal.
I'd like to see quality multimedia presentations available to the public for free. The notion that we need teachers is... well BS. I see no reason why a good multimedia presentation could not out teach most of the teachers we currently employ at our schools. Yes there will be teachers who would be better at teaching. But what if those teachers were free to work on the latest release of the presentation? I can't see how the best professors of the world couldn't put together a killer presentation for the messes.
What about individual attention? Well, how about P2P tutoring? If you look at any class, there are always those who understand the material better then others. We could employ their abilities to give that personal attention when and where it's needed. A couple of individuals in the class who understand the material might even be better then a single teacher. To often a teacher doesn't fully understand the material anyway, an intelligent individual might have just the perspective on the material that the individual who is having problems needs.
Whatever you think about P2P tutoring, I'm sure you'll agree that a computer presentation of a subject can be easier and more engaging. We could even get crazy with it. Biometric feedback to predict the students level of attention, or to since confusion could be used to stare the presentation for maximum learning. If the kid needs a brake we give him a brake, if he need review we give him review. The computer gives us the ability to customize an information presentation to the individuals needs.
As the presentation is just a computer program, we could give it away to the public for free. We could open source it too. Imagine being able to get a better college education from your living room then you could from a classroom. What could keep us from educating ourselves ad infinitem. It would be common to have multiple degrees in several fields. I could finally get the 8 doctorates I've always wanted.
Now if you want the answer to 99 out of 100 questions it's money. So why can't this be done? Thank you captain obvious. Money is a scourge on this land (deleted communistic rant). anywho. P2P shows us the strength of community. I see it as a template for a new future. So whatever the future will be, let's make it a good one.
