P2P file sharing prohibition. Epic fail.
p2pnet news view | P2P | Politics:- Larry Lessig is featured in Playboy.
But it’s OK. He’s discussing the 75th anniversary of a lesson the US learned but, “then quickly forgot,” namely, “the uselessness and harmfulness of wars of prohibition”.
He goes on »»»
In the 75 years since this lesson was first learned, we’ve waged at least two other hopeless wars of prohibition. The bloodiest of these has been the war on drugs. The most recent has been the war against “p2p,” or peer-to-peer, piracy—what some in the industry call the copyright wars or what the late Jack Valenti, former head of the Motion Picture Association of America, called his own “terrorist war,” in which apparently the terrorists are our children.
Over the past decade, copyright extremists have been waging an ever more vicious war against our kids in the name of preserving the sanctity of copyrights. They have succeeded in getting the law strengthened at least a dozen times. The Recording Industry Association of America has filed lawsuits against more than 35,000 people since 2003.
Universities have begun policing their networks and expelling kids who violate antipiracy policies as a way of avoiding even greater pressure from the industry. And countries around the world are now experimenting with a three-strikes policy for Internet access — violate copyright rules three times and your Internet connection will be shut off, permanently.
But, Lessig emphasises, “Though I oppose both the war on drugs and the war against p2p piracy, my opposition has nothing to do with a love of drugs or support for the violation of copyright laws.” Instead, he says, “my opposition to both wars comes from a basic commitment to regulatory pragmatism. And in my view, regulators would be wise to learn to be a bit more humble about the effectiveness of their trade.”
In the decade since the copyright war was launched, “we have not reduced peer-to-peer file sharing,” says Lessig in the Playboy OdEd, “It has only increased. We have not reduced the class of kids engaging in behavior they know to be wrong. We have only caused that class to grow, as more people know the behavior is illegal and engage in it nonetheless.”
Measured along any dimension of success, this war has been a failure, he states: “Artists don’t have more money, businesses haven’t had a clear set of rules to compete against, and a whole generation of children has been raised to think the law is an ass — and an ass that is to be ignored.”
Now, “after 10 years of failure, with literally millions of people living outside the law, it is time for our policy makers to recognize that the world of fantasy politics that Hollywood has encouraged should come to an end,” says Lessig adding:
“Congress should move on to the task of remaking the copyright system in order to make sense of digital technologies, not fight them. It should at a minimum completely deregulate amateur remixing, as well as establish a collective license to compensate artists for peer-topeer file sharing.
“And while it is at it, Congress should also radically increase the efficiency of the current copyright regime by requiring rights holders to at least help keep clear the records of who owns what. These changes would help us build a system in which artists actually get paid, rather than one that simply renders our kids criminals.”
Speakeasy tunes
Back in 2004, “The prohibition-like atmosphere surrounding online music is painful to watch,” said Ashlee Vance, then writing for The Register and now a scribe at the New York Times.
“The labels can keep suing music fans all they like, and their actions may make a small dent in the piracy problem,” he wrote, “But, despite all the fuss, legal downloads still aren’t terribly interesting at all.
“The real money is to be made by using hardware to cash-in on speakeasy tunes, and it’s going to stay that way for a long, long time.”
A year earlier, “By making it unconstitutional for an adult to have a drink in their own home, Prohibition created a cat and mouse game between law enforcement and millions of citizens engaged in an activity that was illegal but popular,” said Clay Shirket in Clay Shirky’s Writings About the Internet.
He went on »»»
As with file sharing, the essence of the game was hidden transactions — you needed to be able to get into a speakeasy or buy bootleg without being seen.
This requirement in turn created several long-term effects in American society, everything from greatly increased skepticism of Government-mandated morality to broad support for anyone who could arrange for hidden transactions, including organized crime. Reversing the cause did not reverse the effects; both the heightened skepticism and the increased power of organized crime lasted decades after Prohibition itself was reversed.
As with Prohibition, so with file sharing — the direct effects from the current conflict are going to be minor and over quickly, compared to the shifts in society as a whole. New entertainment technology goes from revolutionary to normal quite rapidly. There were dire predictions made by the silent movie orchestras’ union trying to kill talkies, or film executives trying to kill television, or television executives trying to kill the VCR.
Once those technologies were in place, however, it was hard to remember what all the fuss was about.
Though most of the writing about file sharing concentrates on the effects on the music industry, whatever new bargain is struck between musicians and listeners will almost certainly be unremarkable five years from now. The long-term effects of file sharing are elsewhere.
The music industry’s attempts to force digital data to behave like physical objects has had two profound effects, neither of them about music.
The first is the progressive development of decentralized network models, loosely bundled together under the rubric of peer-to-peer. Though there were several version of such architectures as early as the mid-90s such as ICQ and SETI@Home, it took Napster to ignite general interest in this class of solutions.
And the second effect, of course, is the long-predicted and oft-delayed spread of encryption.
The RIAA is succeeding where the Cypherpunks failed, convincing users to trade a broad but penetrable privacy for unbreakable anonymity under their personal control. In contrast to the Cypherpunks “eat your peas” approach, touting encryption as a first-order service users should work to embrace, encryption is now becoming a background feature of collaborative workspaces. Because encryption is becoming something that must run in the background, there is now an incentive to make it’s adoption as easy and transparent to the user as possible. It’s too early to say how widely casual encryption use will spread, but it isn’t too early to see that the shift is both profound and irreversible.
“People will differ on the value of this change, depending on their feelings about privacy and their trust of the Government, but the effects of the increased use of encryption, and the subsequent difficulties for law enforcement in decrypting messages and files, will last far longer than the current transition to digital music delivery, and may in fact be the most important legacy of the current legal crackdown,” Shirky adds.
(Cheers, Randy)
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
Playboy – Our New Prohibition, July, 2009
painful to watch – Prohibition and online music, May 20, 2004
cat and mouse game – RIAA succeeds – December 17, 2003
Clay Shirky’s Writings About the Internet – The RIAA Succeeds Where the Cypherpunks Failed, December 17, 2003
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July 8th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
“Larry Lessig is featured in Playboy.”
Just for a second, I was worried about more disturbing images…
:S
July 8th, 2009 at 1:18 pm
how ironic…
I was lambasted back in 96-99 by the underground community by voicing my opinion about the need to obtsuficatie our dealings, and pointing out the imperative of adopting encryption in our file sharing. This pretty much fell on deaf ears. Primarily due to the fact that the platform of choice was obscure enough to go unnoticed, and secondly, there was not a readily available process that would facilitate such an implementation. During this same time, while working my deeper and deeper underground, I found out that something similiar to this was already being utilized. A protocol known as FirstClass was being used by a substantial amount of the underground. It was very difficult to use, robust, and offered an option for encrypted packet transfers. Needless to say, I migrated to this platform in early 2001, begrudgingly accepted by my membership, all for the primary sake of anonymity. A substantial portion of the underground still uses this platform of choice, however, I found it highly counter-productive from the primary goal, socialization and file sharing.
I have noticed that since 2001, just about every single file sharing software application that relies on client/server interaction has a system of encryption built in. Necessity is the mother of invention, and it is plainly obvious to me that pressure from the assholes that are anti-file-sharing, regardless of their affiliation, software, books, music, movies, they have all introduced the necessity of encryption in order to obscure their proclivity of enforcing their will upon us.
For me, it began as ‘kewl’, being able to assess different types of software in order to make an educated decision on what to use moving forward, regardless for professional reasons, or for file sharing reasons. Initially I didn’t host a server, and I was more interested in the social side of the file sharing community and not so much the files themselves. Files can be replaced, people are unique, and cannot. Also, there were significant impediments to sharing large amounts of data, broadband did not exist, nor did Gb size harddrives. As my file sharing evolved, I met a significant amount of incredible people from around the globe. I played chess with a friend in India, I spoke with a friend in Japan for research into a college project, I found out how hot the summers are in Australia, on and on and on. To me it was a cultural explosion. When the fascist mainstream media played down the riots in France, I had a friend that lived on a street in France where the cars were burning that told a different story. When the fireworks plant in Holland exploded because the company ignored safety regulations, it wasn’t even on the news in the USA. The grounded Russian submarine that had Nuclear missiles on board, that the media SWORE didn’t have any, well a friend in Poland cleared that right up.
After a while, I opened my own server, in order to help those that were like my before, without contacts. My ideology was based on a particular tale: Adobe Photoshop was around 600USD in 2001, and I knew many budding artists that had incredible talent, but unable to access this high priced software package. Right, wrong, or indifferent, I was idealistic, and facilitated getting that artist a copy of Photoshop so that he could learn how to use it, and once out of college, he could apply this skill to earn a living, and offer his art to the world. It cascaded from there…
My point is Michaelangelo and Van Gogh were adversaries in the art world, they competed vigorously in Italy for work. If you look closely, you will find a substantial amount of similarities in their works. Imagine the world if Michaelangelo could have copyrighted the vision of an angel, refusing to allow any other artist to sculpt anything similar. There would be alot less angels in the world today.
The MAFIAA is destined to follow the results of prohibition, there is no question.
July 8th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
That is a wonderful story surfer. Although I don’t have as big a network of friends met through file sharing as you, I have met some wonderful people on forums centered (or at least started) around file sharing that live all over the world. Like you say, it is eye opening to have access to all these different cultures and to communicate with all these different people. File sharing is just the beginning, it is so much more than just access to free stuff for me.
July 8th, 2009 at 1:39 pm
“Now, “after 10 years of failure, with literally millions of people living outside the law, it is time for our policy makers to recognize that the world of fantasy politics that Hollywood has encouraged should come to an end,” says Lessig adding:
“Congress should move on to the task of remaking the copyright system in order to make sense of digital technologies, not fight them. It should at a minimum completely deregulate amateur remixing, as well as establish a collective license to compensate artists for peer-topeer file sharing.
“And while it is at it, Congress should also radically increase the efficiency of the current copyright regime by requiring rights holders to at least help keep clear the records of who owns what. These changes would help us build a system in which artists actually get paid, rather than one that simply renders our kids criminals.””
And who will have the money to bribe… sorry, I meant “lobby” the politicians to make these changes?
July 8th, 2009 at 3:02 pm
How many people in the 1920s who went to speakeasies to drink alcohol were prosecuted? Even after a raid?
Anyway, the RIAA lacks a Carrie Nation (or someone more charismatic) to spearhead a more effective anti-P2P movement.
July 9th, 2009 at 5:01 am
“People will differ on the value of this change, depending on their feelings about privacy and their trust of the Government, but the effects of the increased use of encryption, and the subsequent difficulties for law enforcement in decrypting messages and files, will last far longer than the current transition to digital music delivery, and may in fact be the most important legacy of the current legal crackdown,” Shirky adds.
Haha!!! What did they expect???? For us to give up? Hell no!!!
July 9th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I really enjoyed this article as well as the comment by surfer. P2P really is more about person 2 person than anything else and I’ve met a lot of interesting people thanks to the internet. It’s funny too because the thing that most excited me when the internet first came to my town was the possibility of getting my hands on Photoshop (v2 or v3 at the time). Graphics has always driven my interest in computers, right from the first day I used an Apple II+. Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined the future that has come to pass. It’s hard to say what my number one use is these days. Forum posting, entertainment and education are the top three. I’ve never had much money and probably never will short of winning the lottery. Thus I’ve never really felt too bad about pirating, especially with the how the software & entertainment cartels have reacted. I try to use open source apps whenever possible these days and will sometimes donate what I can for the really good ones, but open source solutions aren’t always feasible sadly. One of the ways I tend to justify downloading a graphics application that I can’t afford is how I tend to spend a lot of my time helping others where possible. In the past I’ve written tutorials and have even had the honor of helping out someone from Weta once (can’t say who for fear it may incriminate me, but will admit that his name is in the credits for the LotR trilogy). So in a small way I’ve actually helped increase the value of some apps which is better than nothing. It doesn’t hurt that helping others just feels good too. That is what I like about the internet most of all and is the whole idea behind P2P I think. People coming together to create social networks and help one another. Can’t wait to see what the future has in store!