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Sauce for the Gander: Aimster Uses DMCA to Its Advantage 212

Posted by michael from the see-no-evil dept.
jij writes "Have you seen this? File-trading network Aimster is using an unusual shield to protect its users from snooping: copyright law sponsored by the recording industry. Wired has the story." This is a cute hack, but I really wonder how well it will stand up in court. One of the basic concepts in law is the idea of "unclean hands", where a party may not get relief when they too are breaking the law. In theory, this should prevent the music industry from being able to successfully sue Aimster. But in practice, judges are going to want to rule for the noble music industry against the evil music pirates.
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Sauce for the Gander: Aimster Uses DMCA to Its Advantage More

Sauce for the Gander: Aimster Uses DMCA to Its Advantage

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  • But then it occurred to me, if it was the RIAA itself that gathered the evidence (instead of the police) does the Fourth Amendment apply? Or, for that matter, does DMCA apply to Fourth Amendment?

    Evidence obtained illegally is inadmissable in a court of law whether or not it was obtained by the police.

  • DMCA finally hitting the public conciousness (Score:5)

    by wunderhorn1 ( 114559 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @05:34AM (#389695)
    The syndicated comic strip The Boondocks has been satirizing the DMCA yesterday [ucomics.com] and today [ucomics.com] .

    Check them out, they're hilarious. As an added bonus, the past two weeks' editions have been refering to Napster.

  • DMCA forbids circumventing access control schemes, encryption schemes, copy protection, and the like. The trouble with the DMCA is that for the most part, it doesn't take into account whether or not one may have a legitimate reason for breaking the encryption or copy control scheme; you are even forbidden to break an encryption scheme that keeps you from viewing a copy of data that you bought, paid for, and otherwise have the legal rights to. It is as if a law was passed forbidding people to break locks--even the lock to one's own house!
  • "So you don't know if it is copyrighted until after you break in."

    I think the idea is that to break in, you have to break the DMCA.
  • They really need to take this perversion of the DMCA to the next logical step: Instead of merely banning the offending party from the service, they should require (in the license) that any party who divulges either the usernames, IP addresses, or files held by any other party agrees to be completely liable for any damages, statutory penalties or other legal fees resulting from such action.
  • I don't think the RIAA will go after this with much vengence unless somebody posts passwords on a public bulletin board.

    AOL, on the other hand is very likely to sue them for trademark infringement.
  • So when the RIAA banned all those users last year from Napster, it was because they were able to see the actual file transfers in progress?
  • But three lefts do!
  • IANAL, but it seems to me that Aimster is setting up a nice reducto-ad-absurdium demonstration that DMCA is incosistent with the US law.

    In addition, they're using AIM and buddy lists from AOL.

    There is more than cunning Boies legalese here. Any argument that is raised against Aimster will likely attack AOL as well. AOL has money. Whatever legal strategy they pursue can then be used by Aimster.

    Some lawyer out there has a good understanding of Goedel's incompleteness theorem, and has chopped up DMCA into little coded pieces, put them through the legal mill, and got a nice little paradox from it. You can tweak the DMCA all you want, but the basic concept is logically and inherently flawed.
  • what? RIAA would sue users for infringing on Aimster's ToS?

    That makes no sense, so that's probably not what you meant. What did you mean?
  • If the DMCA is used in a way that defeats it's spirit, you can't reinterpret it in a way that does not flow from the language of the act itself just because it's convenient - if it has been misformulated and can therefore be exploited in this way, it has to be reformulated or amended - not even the highest court in the land can choose to interpret it in a way that does not flow from it's language - it can only declare it unconstitutional. "It wasn't intended to be used in this way" is exactly the point I think needs to be made - it's formulation and it's interpretation have gone too far, and in my opinion have infringed on constitutional rights (although the courts disagree with me so far on that one).


    Obligatory disclaimer IANAL and this begins to go way past my knowledge.

    The DMCA does not exist in a vacuum and has to co-exist with previous case law. This allows for interpretation. Just look at the briefs and rulings handed down in the DeCSS case. Each one has a section of previous rulings to support the authors' conclusions. The DMCA is unconstitutional and here is case X, Y, and Z to prove my point. Or here is my ruling against 2600 and here is case 1, 2, and 3 to clarify why X, Y, and Z are not pertinent to the discussion.Then it is up to a judge or judges to determine which arguement has more signal then noise so to speak.

    IMHO, that means it is possible to get a ruling that, no, the DMCA does not allow someone to protect their lawbreaking by using encryption and such a paradox was never implicit in the wording.I agree that the DMCA's forulation has gone too far and I don't like how the court interprets it atm but I don't see Aimster's hack of the DMCA legal proof of a damning loophole in the act itself.

  • I'm not very different from you - because I can, I tend to look before I buy, but I'd still buy the albums/singles if I couldn't browse them this way because I can listen to them in shops or on CDNow or Amazon or anywhere without downloading the whole thing.

    You don't have to have a digital version of the entire song to decide if you want to buy it.

    But where the damage really starts is that there are very few people in the world with your integrity - most people won't bother to buy something if they can have it for free. Honesty does not prevail - take a look at shareware.

  • And anyway, vinyl sounds better.
  • How can a people "collaborate on documents" when the license agreement explicitly states users cannot actually open the files they download?

    Indeed, what many other people have already said is true: this system cannot work the way it is set up for users must break the license agreement to actually use the system for what it is "intended" to be used for.


  • From the article:
    Aimster encrypts everything that is moved around its network, including all files and directories. It is impossible for anyone outside the system to monitor the network without circumventing the security. Breaking the encryption is illegal under the DMCA because the network and its programming code are copyrighted.

    This leaves copyright owners such as the music and movie industries unable to access the network to monitor the traffic without first breaking the very law they helped get pushed through Congress in 1998.

     So basically they are saying that anyone "monitoring" the network from the "outside" is breaking the law. I assume by "outside the system" they mean searching the contents of someone's share without being invited by the person who owns the share. Big deal, all the RIAA has to do now is have law enforcement pose as a regular user and find people who invite them in and then search their share and *bam* they have the proof they need without breaking Aimster's encryption or the law.

    Think about it, the police operate like this all the time when busting people for selling drugs and prostitution. It's called going undercover.

    Don't get me wrong. I think it's great that Aimster was able to use the DMCA like this, I just don't see it holding up in court.
  • As much as I would like to stick it to the man (the RIAA in this case) I can't see it hold up. A search warrant will easily get around the DMCA provisions, and the RIAA easily has enough power to get one. Then they'll build their case and we're back to where we are with Napster. (Maybe not though, the facts that it's not explicitly for music sharing and the indices aren't stored locally may help.)

    I think the U.S. Supreme Court is the only body in our justice system that I have even a modicum of trust in, so I'm hoping the whole thing will get resolved there with Napster, and the RIAA will die and we can all go back to being sane again. Then this and other similar services can begin to compete on merits and for once the consumer will actually be able to enjoy the fruits of a (more) free market. Of course that's probably unrealistic optimism.

    Dave
  • This happens all the time; company backs up a server, and sends the tapes to an offsite storage firm. That tape is chock full of software which states you can't copy it in any way. But, you say, fair use covers a backup! But any company who wants to keep their data keeps many many historical and working backups. Good to see that most companies in North America are raging software pirates.
  • Whether or not AIMSTER's practices complies with copyright law in a manner that precludes liability for copyright infringement (contributory or otherwise) via a network infrastructure, the trading of information on the network that is copyrighted will continue to be infringement, particularly under the recent 9th Circuit ruling, which held that space-shifting and sampling were not fair uses. Thus, we are still back to defending on the Napster theories, one way or the other.

    As to being able to mush investigations into infringement, this seems an awful lot like legal voodoo to me. To say that the "network and software" are copyrighted does not make the encryption of data an anti-circumvention measure, and hence DMCA doesn't blast the investigators.

    In short, I don't know enough about AIMSTER to pass upon whether they are, in fact, copyright compliant -- I hope so. But even if they are: (1) this doesn't protect its users from being nabbed for infringement; and (2) the encryption of the data doesn't appear to preclude reasonable investigation. At least, not based upon the information in the article alone.

  • Re:Very cute (Score:3)

    by dasunt ( 249686 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @07:00AM (#389715)

    A counterargument:

    Lets say I have computer A and computer B, both of which I legally own, and a nice mp3 collection I have made as legal backups of my CDs. For the sake of argument, all my mp3s are on computer A, and I want to transfer them over to computer B. Since they are hooked up to the university's network, I just move them over to a folder on the network and then move them to computer B. Now for awhile, the University had a "copy" of my files floating around their network. If possession was illegal, then the university would be in trouble.

    Now this may be a contrived example, but information passes through dozens of servers daily, and occasionally that information is copied (as in a cache or for another purpose). Thus I'm going to have to believe that there is a strong argument for being able to possess files that you have no rights too.

  • In addition, the DeCSS case has taught us that judges dispense with reason and existing precedent when profits are at stake.

    If that were true, then they'd even interfere with elections and install their own president.

    Like that would ever happen ...

  • You misunderstood my point. I agree that P2P file sharing services should be as legal as any other search engine. However, if Napster's service is deemed illegal under the DMCA, then Aimster's half a**ed ToS change will not alter their legal status. This is just another case where what should be and what is are two different things.

    Lenny

  • Well what about Viruses (Score:3)

    by Sc00ter ( 99550 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @05:38AM (#389722) Homepage
    There's always and argument that floats around. Is Symantic or Norton violating the DMCA when they reverse engineer viruses so they can prevent them?
    --
  • "As noble Slashdotters, we're supposed to hate AOL, and love Napster, so what are we supposed to do in this case?"

    Sorry I just can't get myself to love any corporation. To me all corporations are the same.
  • LOL. Just like the supreme court did with the election. They said something to the effect..

    "We are using the equal access clause to justify this decision but only in this case. If you come to us with another equal protection case we reserve the right to ignore it alltogether.
  • That if it is possible to hold the Napster service accountable for the potential abuse of its users, which it can't control, the next logical step would be to sue the big backbone providers (MCI/Worldcom/UUNET, Sprint, etc) because their networks could potentially be used for piracy. Since it would be as impossible for the backbone to police its users as it would for Napster to do so, it is equally as logical and compelling to shut the backbone down for the same reasons.

  • It is legal for me to lend a CD to a friend and let him make a copy for his own use.

    Not anymore; the Napster case changed the law. If you think that he might make a copy of the CD, then your act of lending the CD to him, is contributory copyright infringement.


    ---

  • Confusing... (Score:4)

    by NecroPuppy ( 222648 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @05:20AM (#389736) Homepage
    As noble Slashdotters, we're supposed to hate AOL, and love Napster, so what are we supposed to do in this case?

    Tho, I do have to agree... Lovely hack... :)
  • did anyone else notice the main page?...

    right next to the picture of the attractive jailbait, the blinking words...

    "Can't Touch This!"

    --nick
  • No they didn't have to reverse engineer their BIOS. IBM always had the source to their BIOS open for anyone to read, but it was still copyrighted. What Compaq had to do was get some engineers who had never seen the BIOS code to "clean room clone" it. This is not the same thing as reverse engineering.

  • Yeah right... (Score:3)

    by freeweed ( 309734 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @05:21AM (#389741)
    However, by terms of the contract, users agree not to actually open the files they download.

    This is no different than warez and rom sites that state "You may only download this file for backup purposes only", or "You must delete the file after 24 hours".

    I can't believe anyone would actually think this would stand up in court. This is basically Napster with a meaningless EULA. Ooooo, the RIAA is shaking in their boots!

  • The first thing is that they're making the point, implicitly, but quite clearly, that the DMCA was a law passed to serve a certain group of people rather than the people as a whole - and now that they've used its provisions to protect themselves, the law has to either take the bullet, accept that it's there to serve the interests of the RIAA and cohorts, or feign ignorance and let this happen.

    I don't see why this has to be so. If you use encryption to hide a crime do you actually think that you will be protected by the DMCA. You will have a 1000 page brief by the government to the judge in less than a week. Just like the government did when Napster tried to use the Home Recording Act as a defense. "No your honor. The DMCA was not meant to be used this way."
    Secondly, for this to be illegal, it has to be proven that it is being used to copy music/films/copyrighted information. This cannot be done without someone finding out about the content being transferred - and this cannot be broken without invalidating the case against DeCSS.

    Again, why must this be. The MPAA could not prove DeCSS was being used to pirate DVDs. The idea they had to sell is that it was likely DeCSS could be used to pirate DVDs. What would stop the RIAA saying "Well your honor this fellow had 1 gig worth of 4-5Meg files in his shared folder and that looked suspiciously like a MP3 warehouse. We downloaded and decrypted a few and sure enough we found Metallica songs." Being a civil case, the burden of proof would likely be on the defendant not on the RIAA.
    It's an interesting cross-over of the DeCSS case with the Napster case, and it uses the law very intelligently to say that if these provisions can protect one party, they can protect all parties.

    Interesting, yes. Intellegent? I'm not sure. There is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Aimster, from a certain standpoint, is breaking the spirit of the law. I'm simply not convinced that this legal "hack" would stand up in court.
    ...sales of singles are down something like 10% in a strengthening economy...

    I don't know which country you live in but in the US we're having an economic slowdown which will likely require months to dig out of and has been going on since the fourth quarter of 2000. I suggest you look at the recent cover of Fortune magazine.
    All we've really done is said: "Look, the DMCA allows us to prevent you from proving that people are breaking the law", and that's a really good point proving that the DMCA goes much too far.

    Again, I don't buy this. Simply having some lame TOS agreement with no teeth and then encrypting data so concerned parties can't "legally" inspect it comes off as a flim-flam job. I envision this getting to court and the judge pulling a stunt out of Miss Congeniality "You think I'm stuuupid. You don't like me. I should issue an injunction..."

  • A question for lawyers (Score:4)

    by OlympicSponsor ( 236309 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @05:22AM (#389744)
    Here's what I was about to post: "It doesn't matter how judges want to rule, if the evidence was gathered in opposition to law (DMCA) than you can't even say that Aimster has unclean hands." But then it occurred to me, if it was the RIAA itself that gathered the evidence (instead of the police) does the Fourth Amendment apply? Or, for that matter, does DMCA apply to Fourth Amendment?

    That is, does the fact that the DMCA makes "breaking protection schemes" illegal force the police into a position (via the Fourth Amendment) where they can't access, say, my hard drive? And if so, does it place the RIAA in the same position or are they exempt by not being a law enforcement agency?
    --
    Non-meta-modded "Overrated" mods are killing Slashdot
  • Hmm... manipulating existing law for your own purposes... it's funny how much this reminds me of the GPL.

    GPL: using copyright law to create a "copyleft" license that guarantees your right to redistribute program code.

    Aimster: using the DMCA to create a network that is at once peer-to-peer and NOT peer-to-peer and is protected from the prying eyes of copyright lawyers.

    Now, here is my concern. This "unclean hands" concept kind of has me worried; the Aimster terms of use agreement and the GPL are NOT what I would call traditional interpretations of existing law. If, in the upcoming peer-to-peer witchhunt, someone manages to take Aimster down, could the GPL get caught in the area of effect?

    -inq
  • From what I can tell, the DMCA basically says reverse engineering is illegal.

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but the PC was cloned from IBM using reverse engineering. The entire American economy for the past 5 years has revolved around tech (little bit of hyperbole here), brought about mostly because of the proliferation of cheap PC's. Why does this point never seem to come up when people discuss the DMCA?

    Was the DMCA brought in just to avoid another Nasdaq crash? :)

    Please enlighten this ignorant Canuck :)

  • What if you copied a cd from a friend using your CD Writer but never actually listened to it?

    Are you still breaking copyright law? Yes.

    If I copy Microsofts lastest software and give it to a friend, but he never actually installs it or uses it in any way, is the law broken? Yes!

    This seems like a good idea designed to entice legally-worried users away from the Napster service, but in the end its no more legal than sharing music via Napster.

    -----

  • Even without the encryption and the DMCA, if someone who is not authorized to access a computer accesses that computer is guilty of computer tresspass.

  • Although I immediately liked the idea of turning a bad law against itself, I think Aimster might have some problems. Under their privacy/security section, they say that all materials exchanged are copyrighted and then encrypted, so that breaking the encryption is a DMCA violation. My question is: does this only apply to material which you own the copyright to and then you encrypt?

    That is, is there a difference between sharing a document for collaboration over Aimster which I and my friends are co-writing, and sharing mp3s over Aimster which are probably copyright Warner Bros. or something like that. So if the fine folks at copyright.net (how unlike copyleft.net!) crack the encryption to find that I'm swapping mp3s, I might not be able to use the DMCA as my defense since the encryption was not a protection service used by the copyright owners.

    Of course, if the RIAA cracks the encryption to find a document that is copyrighted by me, then I really could go after them. It's kind of a gamble on their part as to whom they think certain material is copyrighted by. Unfortunately, they have enough money that they could probably just crack 'em all and suffer through a few DMCA lawsuits, since they probably have much better lawyers than Joe MP3-Ripper.

  • Comment removed (Score:3)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @05:44AM (#389752)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • Otherwise, if you already know the ppl you are sharing with why would you not just use FTP?

    Because it's not encrypted and thus completely snoopable. Ease of use is other reason that springs to mind.

  • It wouldn't bring down the DMCA at all; it would just expose the RIAA (or representatives thereof) to prosecution under the same statutes. I think they're willing to sacrifice a couple of reps, or a few hundred grand in court costs and penalties, to shut something like this down. They sure haven't shown any restraint in spending to bring Napster, et al, to their knees.
  • AIMster doesn't just support AIM. It also supports ICQ, MSN, and has Napster and Gnutella plugins.

    It's the universal Peer-to-Peer client!

    If they ported this thing to Linux, I could delete all my IM's and P2P file sharing things!

    It's so perfect.
  • Doubtful; all they have to do is get themselves invited into one of the share groups and harvest from there. Even if they did take the (stupid) brute force, cracking the encryption approach, I think they'd still only face penalties as detailed under the DMCA for circumventing copyright protection mechanisms... and as I say, I think they would probably consider it worth the cost.
  • I dunno. The department secretary has some pretty obtuse writing.

    "This either says, 'Meeting at noon' or 'Mining baffoon'..."


    --
  • You could just get me onto your list.
    Napster locks up and crashes whenever I try to get on. There must be some kind limit or something.

    Rader

  • Its not the DMCA that's going to protect them... (Score:3)

    by BranMan ( 29917 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @07:31AM (#389772)
    it's the Sony Betamax case!

    Consider - the idea with Aimster is to share files *with people
    you already know*. This is fundamentally different than
    Napster. It is legal for me to lend a CD to a friend and let
    him make a copy for his own use. However, it is not legal
    for me to make a copy and give it to him - he has to actively
    create the copy for himself. Given this, Aimster is perfectly
    legal - it is allowing a friend of yours (since you are using
    buddy lists) to make a copy of your music for his own use.
    Since your friend is using Aimster, he is the active copier
    and so can legally do so.

    Am I wrong? Anyone (lawyers) out there confirm this?

  • Lawyer: I'm skeptical (Score:4)

    by hawk ( 1151 ) <hawk@eyry.org> on Friday March 02, 2001 @10:23AM (#389773) Journal
    I am a lawyer, but this is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, contact an attorney licensed in your jurisdiction.


    The Fourth Amendment only applies to governmental action. Any law must give way to the 4th or any othe rpart of the constitution.


    However, when a private party acts illegally, it is likely to be "estopped" from using evidence gathered in this matter. However, estoppel is a doctrine from equity, not law, and the party seeking to use an equitable doctrine must come forwared with "clean hands"


    So why am I skeptical? Very simply, the purported license terms apear to be a sham from the beginning. There appears to be not only no legitimate use, but no use at all for the service under its license terms. You are allowed to download a file, but not open it afterwards. In other words, its useless.


    If it's true that David Boies was involved, there may be something that wasn't reported that would make a difference: he's too smart and too good an attorney to have been involved with this the way it was reported (OK, some of his arguments on behalf of the Gore campaign were silly at best, but he's still very good. And when your case is a lost cause from the start, a good attorney grabs for every glimmer of hope).


    From what has been reported, it would seem to me that there's a good chance that the license is modified by the clear intent of the authors (as is the case where projects are accused of violating their own GPL license) so that opening the files *is* allowed. At that point, I don't see where aimster has gotten anywhere.


    hawk, esq.

  • Re:Sure... (Score:5)

    by nlvp ( 115149 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @05:47AM (#389775)
    Their claims of legality are dubious, at best.

    What you mean is that it's dubious that their system will be used for legal purposes - what they're doing is no more illegal than enabling a corporate network unless their model is dependent upon pirating music in the same way as Napster does.

    This is really smart for quite a few reasons, I can think of 2 that are so cool they give me goosebumps.

    The first thing is that they're making the point, implicitly, but quite clearly, that the DMCA was a law passed to serve a certain group of people rather than the people as a whole - and now that they've used its provisions to protect themselves, the law has to either take the bullet, accept that it's there to serve the interests of the RIAA and cohorts, or feign ignorance and let this happen.

    Secondly, for this to be illegal, it has to be proven that it is being used to copy music/films/copyrighted information. This cannot be done without someone finding out about the content being transferred - and this cannot be broken without invalidating the case against DeCSS.

    It's an interesting cross-over of the DeCSS case with the Napster case, and it uses the law very intelligently to say that if these provisions can protect one party, they can protect all parties.

    But let's not lose sight of the ball here - although the DMCA is bad and the case against DeCSS should rot and die, the case against Napster still provides a conundrum - sales of singles are down something like 10% in a strengthening economy, which begs the question, "was it Napster?" (my personal opinion : Yes it was). If there is a problem there, and sales are being reduced because people are pirating records - then there's still something illegal going on, and just because it's illegal to get around our obfuscation because we've been smart doesn't make us any better than the MPAA using the DMCA to crush DeCSS.

    All we've really done is said: "Look, the DMCA allows us to prevent you from proving that people are breaking the law", and that's a really good point proving that the DMCA goes much too far. It doesn't make obtaining songs without paying for them any more legal than before, and that's got nothing to do with the DMCA.

  • Evidence obtained illegally is inadmissable in a court of law whether or not it was obtained by the police.

    Right. It's called 'Fruit of the Poisonous Tree', or more properly, The Exclusionary Rule. But, IIRC, that's only for use in a criminal trial.

    Also, it's not a statutory rule; rather it is judge-made, even though there are a series of Supreme Court decisions affirming it.

    Info link [lexis.com] on the Exclusionary rule, it's standing, and it's exceptions.

  • I can't believe anyone would actually think this would stand up in court. This is basically Napster with a meaningless EULA.

    True, but then software companies seem to expect courts to uphold their meaningless EULAs all the time.

  • Re:Lawyer: I'm skeptical (Score:5)

    by TheCarp ( 96830 ) <sjc@NospAM.carpanet.net> on Friday March 02, 2001 @10:59AM (#389785) Homepage
    > So why am I skeptical? Very simply, the
    > purported license terms apear to be a sham from
    > the beginning. There appears to be not only no
    > legitimate use, but no use at all for the
    > service under its license terms. You are allowed
    > to download a file, but not open it afterwards.
    > In other words, its useless.

    Well IANAL but I am a Sysadmin and have worked customer support. So while I may not be an expert on the law, I am an expert on spotting the actions of a person who is operating an an area where they are incompetent.

    This seems like one. Namely that the aimster people don't know law, and are trying to use what they do know (programming, logic) to find a way to sneak around the law and cover their asses.

    Regardless of what the license says, its a peer to peer general file sharing protocol. In fact, its a "closed" one that lets you choose which peers to share with.

    This has more REAL uses than I can imagine. I don't know how often I, or a friend, will do something (be it one friend scanning in a picture he drew, or another who wants to show me a config file etc etc) where something like this would be GREAT!

    I run my own domain with a machine sitting off a DSL line, and am paranoid about security (or try to be). So I wont run ftp because its inherintly insecure. Alot of people wont use scp. And my AIM client (everybuddy) refuses to do file transfers.

    If I want to share a file, I make a "secret" directory and put it on my webserver (no, not usually the carpanet.net one - I am a sysadmin afterall, I have many servers), but not everyone can do that.

    All in all, they are providing a worthwhile service, allowing people to securely share files. Better than napster really, since napster was designed for promiscuous anonymous mp3 sharing SPECIFICALLY.

    I think this is on better footing both from a useability standpoint, a bandwidth standpoint (don't get me started about the dorm network and napster - students downloading isn't why we blocked it at the boarder router until we could institute a bandwith cap) and from a legal one... since its really a very general utility.

    If one wanted to compare p2p file sharing protocols to "tools" napster would be like a lockpick (nothing evil about them, they are useful for people who arn't "theives" but - not very general)....this is more like a hammer, or a crow bar. Lots and lots of general uses.

    -Steve

  • What's to stop some bastard group of lawyers employing a consultant in another country to review what's being swapped on the network and reporting this back to previously mentioned bastard lawyers?

    Surely this evidence could then be submitted in the US?

  • Ok, you're wrong.

    IBM opened up their specs, allowing everybody to make PCs, and by doing so, they virtually wiped Apple off of the map. Have you ever wondered why there's a proliferation of PC clones, and no Mac clones currently being produced? It's not because the PC was such a great platform that everybody wanted to emulate.

    A couple of years back, Apple licensed their boxes to serveral clone manufacturers, Motorola among them, to make 'clones'. When Jobs got back in power, one of his first moves was to get rid of the 3rd party manufacturers. He then went on to build bright blue one piece boxes, and star in several successful Broadway productions before being tragically burnt passing out in front of a bonfire.

    Just checking to see if you're paying attention

  • Re:Yeah right... (Score:4)

    by f5426 ( 144654 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @05:54AM (#389797)
    > I think they may be secretly hoping it doesn't stand up in court, because in order to be struck down, RIAA has to show just how poor a law the DMCA really is and start the ball rolling on repealing the law

    I don't get it. They will just add something like 'DCMA-is-for-consumers,-not-for-RIAA'. Of course 'DCMA-is-for-consumers,-not-for-RIAA' will be written 'in-case-of-file-swapping, a law enforcment agency can be asked by plaintiff to ask for a descryption key. Plaintiff can then monitor traffic for a limited time'. Of course, 'in-case-of-file-swapping' will be written 'in case of suspicion of repeated copyright violation'...

    I'm sorry, but I have yet to see a case where a clever-or-not-so-clever hack can destroy a money-bought law. The law will just become more and more fascist, ("Dear congress, those evil bastard are trying everything to break our beloved DMCA. Could-you add something about death penalty for anyone making a digital copy of anything ? Thanks in advance. PS: Feel free to use the enclosed blank check.)

    Cheers,

    --fred
  • Unless the virus makes you accept an EULA, this argument is invalid.

    A trojan horse, on the other hand, could easily add an EULA.
  • All they need to do is have a few people with mp3s sit back and let themselves get invited in the trading circles/whatever, and then a few months later sue them claiming that they're violating the ToS by opening the files.

    Yes, but then that is not a violation by the service, but the user who violated the EULA. If the companies want to go after the service, then they have to basically argue against the applicability of EULAs.

    The way I see it, if they crack the encryption, then they'll have to fight against the DMCA.

    If they bootstrap through a user, then they have to fight against EULAs.

    Either way, the music industry has to argue against something that's been a monkey on the back of the users.


    --

  • Clarification (Score:5)

    by SnowDog_2112 ( 23900 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @05:57AM (#389801) Homepage
    After reading the Wired story, I still had some confusion, so I went to aimster's site and read the new TOS.

    Basically, the new TOS has two big clauses:

    1. The network is encrypted and private, and by the DCMA you can't break that encryption.

    2. The whole goal of AIMSTER is to distribute to yourself files you already own, or to collaborate with a known group of individuals on files you own and can legally share with them (i.e. a text document you are editing together).

    You also agree not to copy files out of your aimster folders into other folders, unless those folders are also shared on aimster. And (here's the key) you agree not to open a file in any aimster folder unless you know for sure it's legally yours to open.

    I think what they've effectively done is say "Look, there's a legit market for distributed storage of files. We've done our best to make sure it's used legally. If you think someone is using this service illegally, pursue them, don't pursue us." They've also made it non-trivial to gather evidence to show the service is being used illegally.

    I think it's fairly clever. I'm trying to find a way in which they're breaking a law, and I can't. Of, course, IANAL :). But I don't see how this is different than:

    - Using an encryption program to encrypt some files
    - Placing those files on your machine in a shared folder, which is password protected
    - Using a service like AIM/ICQ to tell your buddies about the password-protected share, including the password and directions on how to decrypt.

    Who can you sue in the above scenario? Only the end user is breaking the law, if any law is being broken. I think aimster is just wrapping all 3 of those things into one convenient package.

    Good job, guys.

  • Re:Wow (Score:3)

    by SnapShot ( 171582 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @06:11AM (#389804)

    Just because _Erin Brokovitch_ got made into a movie doesn't mean that the legal system works as well for the poor as it does for the rich.

    Even without the the direct influence of money (e.g. not necessarily bribes, but better and more lawyers and far more "staying power") judges are human beings and are as subject to marketing as anyone else and if "evil music pirates" gets repeated often enough they are going to be influenced. The RIAA can afford to have a PR Bunny stationed 24/7 at every major TV network and newspaper. I think that was the original poster's point: "the RIAA (or any large corp) gets to choose the terms under which the battle is fought." If the terms are "noble muscician" versus "evil pirate", the battle is already lost: DCMA will never be overturned.


    Of course there are many fair judges, but they get labled as "liberal activist" by the same corporate shills that are paying congress to write (and rewrite) legislation.

  • IBM published the assembler source to the BIOS in its Hardware Technical Reference Manuals. (I am the proud owner of both a PC and an AT HTRM. I wonder how much they'd get on Ebay.) The BIOS cloners had to set up clean room environments that included programmers who could state under oath that they hadn't read the IBM source. One group would read the source, document the functions and their return values and a second group would reproduct the (uncopyrightable) functionality without copying the copyrighted source.

    IBM actually made the job legally more difficult because they published the code.
  • Try this with Gnutella:

    1) Take the Gnutella protocol and add some bitstring to the begining. Call it the New Gnutella protocol.

    2) Write a New Gnutella client that only accepts data from New Gnutella clients.

    3) Add to the New Gnutella license: "By using this system, you agree not to use this system to identify users. You agree not to pursue any legal action against users. You agree to pay a $5,000 penalty to any user privacy whose you violate."

    Sure, it would be trivial to reverse-engineer the "security" bitstring, but wait a minute, that's a clear violation of the DMCA.
  • This was hinted at by others.

    Why not create a p2p service that only serves up css encrypted files, using a key that isn't distributed.

    To use the files you have to get the DeCSS utility from a "pirate" web site.

    Now nobody can verify the contents of the files without violating the DMCA!
  • How is reverse engineering a patented work infringement?

    Its stupid, afterall, the patent is documentation on how it works, thats why the entire system of patents was created, to give creators in incentive to publish how things work.

    ALL the patent is an offer saying "If you publish how it works, in the form of a patent, then we give you 17 years exclusive rights to use it"

    Reverse engineering a patented product is fine, but its pointless since you could have just looked it up. Producing a copy of a patented work and/or trying to sell it without permission - that would be infringment.

    The DMCA however DOES have a clause about "circumventing an access control device". If the virus encrypted itself (which some viruses do) then reverse engineering it could be considered "circumventing an access control device" and thus outlawed via the DMCA.

    Anyone else want to write a virus, dstribute it only to willing friends, and put it on a web page in binary form and then sue semantic when they come out with a virus definition for it?

    Sounds like fun to me.

    -Steve
  • The DMCA includes an exception for law enforcement. You can still download MP3s and watch foregin DVDS while you eat donuts and kill innoncent people.

    But the RIAA is not a law enforcement agecny, not yet. They can't break the law in order to find criminal activity.
  • I don't know about the DMCA, this has probably changed but...

    A debate raged for years about people making copies of music. Like making a tape copy to listen to in the car. RIAA said "Making copies even for personal use (like listening at work) is illegal, buy two copies" Consumer groups said "Its fair use".

    Eventually the law was ammended to end this debate once and for all. It SPECIFICALLY said that end users COULD make personal copies of MUSIC (specifically).

    However, this law was also ambiguous, and a new debate raged. Because the new amendment could be interpreted in such a way that its perfectly legal to make a personal copy and give only the copy to a friend. AFAIK this question was never answered definitivly.

    (this comes from a copyright FAQ that I read prior to the whole DMCA debacle - this may have changed)

    Of course, copyright law also explicitly states that for music there is a manditory license. You can sell copies of music as long as you A) state ahead of time that you intend to (to the copyright holder) and B) Pay royalties by a certain time afterwards.

    -Steve
    -Steve
  • I think the problem is the AIMSTER people are trying too hard.

    scp can be used to violate copyright, so can ftp, http, etc etc etc.

    What they need to do is make a general filesharing tool for sharing files with your friends. Thats what they made, thats all they need.

    The problem with napster was really that it was specifically aimed at MP3s, AND that it was inherintly promiscuous. You could only share with everyone.

    Now I think they are scared and trying to be clever and cover their ass, when in reality it doesn't need any more cover than its got.

    If you don't want to hear from the law, don't sell lock picks, sell hammers. Nice general tool swhere the plethora of legitimate uses is obvious.

    -Steve
  • I think I'm getting the idea of this, with the encryption and all, but one thing isn't quite clear to me. Is the reason the DMCA defense seems plausible is because each Aimster account is essentially a closed system?

    The reason this works is because Aimster has legitimate, legal, fair uses as a service. And using the DMCA, it's illegal to intercept/decrypt/decipher what is in those transmissions. So somebody like the RIAA can't snoop the traffic to see if Aimster users are sending MP3s. They also can't get a court to bypass the DMCA because the RIAA does not ( and cannot without breaking the DMCA) know whether Aimster users are engaging in illegal activity or not, since Aimster does have legitimate uses.

    I suppose it's somewhat equivalent to the police entering your home without probable cause, finding drugs/illegal material/criminal activity, and THEN arresting you. The police can't unlawfully search your home due to the 4th Amendment (DMCA) to find illegal material (MP3s) since your home does (hopefully) have legitimate fair, non-infringing uses.
  • "No your honor. The DMCA was not meant to be used this way."

    The DMCA was not meant to be used to enforce customer segmentation either, but that's what the CSS does. The CSS does *not* copy-protect.

    I don't disagree with you that this system can't stand up for long - my argument is that it makes an excellent point about the DMCA and the way in which it has been interpreted.

    Interesting, yes. Intellegent? I'm not sure. There is the letter of the law and the spirit of the law. Aimster, from a certain standpoint, is breaking the spirit of the law. I'm simply not convinced that this legal "hack" would stand up in court.

    Precisely - the spirit of the law was that the DMCA should protect certain types of intellectual property rights in the light of new technology, but by applying the letter of the law and a few obfuscation techniques, it has been used to enforce a system of market segmentation the sole purpose of which is to drive greater profits by staggering cinematic and home-view media releases across the globe, and to limit the group of companies that can manufacture DVDs to those that receive licenses to use the technology, therefore controlling not only the media but also the manufacture and distribution of the delivery device.

    If the DMCA is used in a way that defeats it's spirit, you can't reinterpret it in a way that does not flow from the language of the act itself just because it's convenient - if it has been misformulated and can therefore be exploited in this way, it has to be reformulated or amended - not even the highest court in the land can choose to interpret it in a way that does not flow from it's language - it can only declare it unconstitutional. "It wasn't intended to be used in this way" is exactly the point I think needs to be made - it's formulation and it's interpretation have gone too far, and in my opinion have infringed on constitutional rights (although the courts disagree with me so far on that one).

    Aimster have not only used the DMCA to protect themselves, but they've used the same interpretation of it that was used to protect CSS and to whack 2600. You seem to think I'm saying Aimster is wonderful and I hope it stays open forever - that's not my opinion (as should be clear from the end of my last post) - I think it makes a point - and a valid one. Don't you?

    I suggest you look at the recent cover of Fortune magazine.

    Just did - interesting, nice to see what happens on the other side of the pond, but as you correctly state, you don't know what country I'm in, and it's not the US.

    I said : All we've really done is said: "Look, the DMCA allows us to prevent you from proving that people are breaking the law", and that's a really good point proving that the DMCA goes much too far.
    To which you replied : Again, I don't buy this.

    Don't buy what? That this is the statement being made? If what you're saying is that Aimster isn't and shouldn't be legal, then you're not disagreeing with me - what I said was that it was making a good point - of course it's a "flim flam job" it's a caricature of legality, but the nature of a caricature is to throw certain aspects of something into a more extreme contrast - in this case, certain aspects of the DMCA interpretation.

  • I'm not entirely sure that's true, but even if it is, what is illegal for a private citizen (or industry group, in this case) is different than what is illegal for a public police force. The Fourth Amendment restricts the government's ability to invade private areas without a warrant detailing probable cause. But if an RIAA rep wanted to go in, gather evidence, and present it to the feds, that would probably constitute sufficient probable cause. And keep in mind that's just for criminal matters--a court order could force Aimster to open up records for civil litigation.

    RIAA might get into their own pan of hot water for circumventing DMCA to monitor Aimster, but it wouldn't prevent them from bringing suit, and they might well consider it a small price to pay to shut the service down.

    IANAL
  • Yes that's true, but why would you bother doing that if you weren't going to use it?

  • Re:Confusing... (Score:3)

    by ichimunki ( 194887 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @06:01AM (#389830)
    It merely takes advantage of AOL's IM service. In fact, since AOL (by virtue of being associated with Warner Bros) is essentially an RIAA member this is an interesting misuse of their service. I wouldn't be surprised if this catches on and then results in some additional AIM changes that none of us like.

    Wooed by the hottie on the front page of www.aimster.com, I was all set to download the client. Until I noticed that they only provide software for Windows machines. *sigh*
  • If RIAA cracked Aimster's encryption, Aimster would sue RIAA for violation of DMCA - that's the idea anyway. RIAA's only option would be to get DMCA changed. Either outcome is probably okie-dokie w/ Aimster. IANAL
  • Interesting article [salon.com] in Salon (a couple years old) about how Federal Judges are cozied up to by foundations with business interests. This particular article is about antitrust legislation, but it does make you think that perhaps judges who accept $5000 vacations and attend "educational" seminars on law and economics... might not be completely impartial.
  • Certainly, if probable cause is available to justify a warrant to break the encryption

    Set it up right and you *can't* break the encryption, unless you are the user who uploaded it. Most places that offer encryption and aren't out to screw the end user do this -- they'll encrypt your password, but if you forget it, too bad! They can't decrypt it.

    If you're super-paranoid... Mix multiple compression schemes with with multiple encryption schemes. ("To e-mail me: reverse address, ROT-13, gunzip, untar, delete every prime-numbered character, save the whole thing, stick it through tar again... Then run it through Blowfish.") You might need a script to do this, so you don't forget the procedure... :) But that would defeat the whole purpose of the encryption.) Why anyone would need this, I don't know... But it can't hurt if you're extremely paranoid.

    Now... For my last idea. If you're paranoid about being subpoenaed (sp?) into opening your files in court for some bizarre reason... Share gibberish! You can decrypt it all you want, but it's never anything more than random characters. (Warning: Your random characters may be remarkably similar to the source code for Microsoft Windows. If you are worried about being accused of stealing Microsoft's source code, you may want to insert something such as the Linux source code, which will confuse their programmers for hours on end. ["Ooh! How did they get the source code this neat? It took us years of randomly banging on the keyboard to get Windows to work."]
    ________________________________________________

  • Wow (Score:3)

    by n3rd ( 111397 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @05:23AM (#389839)
    But in practice, judges are going to want to rule for the noble music industry against the evil music pirates.

    Oh come on, how biased of a statement can this be? If you agree with the Napster decision or not, all judges don't automatically side with big companies.

    Slashdot needs to be more careful in its blanket statements and stay away from blatantly biased statements such as this one.

  • Ok, I'll give it a shot and subject myself to the fearsome wrath of the moderators.

    Basically the DMCA says that reverse engineering is legal. I'm not going to go look up the section number right now, but I know for a fact that they made exceptions for reverse engineering, otherwise it might never have made it through Congress. Now, where they were clever and malicious is when they made it illegal to circumvent any technology that serves as a protection for the copyright on the media. So basically they are saying that reverse engineering is legal, as long as you can do it without cracking their encryption or any other method of protection they use, no matter how weak it is.

    Yes, this is a poor explanation, but since nobody else posted an actual answer to his question, I figure this is better than nothing. And I didn't want to go hunting for quotes and section numbers. I might come back and post a link or 2 for more info later.

  • The quote you're looking for his from Hamlet, and the exact quote is insanely appropriate:

    "The engineer hoist by his own petard"

    "Petard" is primitive ordnance.
  • It is legal for me to lend a CD to a friend and let him make a copy for his own use.
    INAL either, but I think you're being a bit disengenuous here: it may be legal for you to loan your cd to your friend, but it's obviously illegal for him to copy it. The only difference here lies in which one of you breaks the law -- in the first case he does, and in the second case you do.

    Shooting somebody with a borrowed gun doesn't make it OK.

  • Re:Yeah right... (Score:5)

    by jandrese ( 485 ) <kensama@vt.edu> on Friday March 02, 2001 @05:26AM (#389853) Homepage Journal
    I think they may be secretly hoping it doesn't stand up in court, because in order to be struck down, RIAA has to show just how poor a law the DMCA really is and start the ball rolling on repealing the law. The loss of yet another peer file sharing system is not a big deal, the loss of the DMCA on the other hand would be a huge weight off of the shoulders of reverse engineers and compatilbity experts everywhere (many of which work with free software).

    Down that path lies madness. On the other hand, the road to hell is paved with melting snowballs.
  • What a stupid, pedantic nitpick! The activities performed by the engineers would be recognized by most non-anal-rententive people as "reverse engineering".

    --Jim
  • (Although there's much fun to be had with what 'sales of singles' might mean, I'll leave that alone...)

    Sales of singles is down???? I haven't seen anyplace to buy singles since they stopped selling 45 RPM vinyl records. Once in a while you'll see a 'CD Single' which is actually three songs on a mini-CD.

    If the only place they can show a decrease in sales is on singles, then it sounds like all other sales are UP.

    I have never, nor has anyone I know, bought a 'single' in the last 15 years. Before or after Napster. I think I got one out of a cereal box once...

    What kind of argument is this supposed to be... I suppose sales of electric orange housepaint is down too??! (aka Nobody buys that either)

  • That's probably the only reason (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Otherwise, if you already know the ppl you are sharing with why would you not just use FTP?

  • This is so easy to check, why not take 30 seconds to get it right.

    IBM did NOT open up their specs. COMPAQ had to reverse engineer the BIOS.

    See this article [zilog.com] at Zilog for some documentation.


    OpenSourcerers [opensourcerers.com]

  • Re:But you are actually making a copy... (Score:3)

    by kyz ( 225372 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @06:07AM (#389865) Homepage
    What if you copied a cd from a friend using your CD Writer but never actually listened to it? Are you still breaking copyright law? Yes.

    No, you're not, unless it is known that the copied CD does indeed infringe copyright. Until you know what is on the CD, it's a legal Schroedinger's Cat.

    What would be the case if I offered you CDs marked 'Britney Spears hits', and you copied them, only to discover they contained nothing but Richard Stallman's 'Free Software' song? You have not broken copyright law. However, if they did contain Britney's finest, you would have willfully infringed copyright law, which would be tougher penalties than if you could show you did not know you had infringed copyrights by copying them. (IANAL)

  • Quick Question (Score:3)

    by edibleplastic ( 98111 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @06:36AM (#389871)
    I think I'm getting the idea of this, with the encryption and all, but one thing isn't quite clear to me. Is the reason the DMCA defense seems plausible is because each Aimster account is essentially a closed system? Would this work on a file system where you can see everybody's computers, like on napster? Or does it need to run on a closed system because then you can't just do a search and find someone's files, you'd have to actually target their transfers and try to break the encryption?
  • However, by terms of the contract, users agree not to actually open the files they download.

    I often wonder about agreements like this. What if after I download it my roommate opens it over our LAN from HIS computer? HE never agreed to the contract, and I have no knowledge of his actions...

    Aimster encrypts everything that is moved around its network, including all files and directories. It is impossible for anyone outside the system to monitor the network without circumventing the security. Breaking the encryption is illegal under the DMCA because the network and its programming code are copyrighted.

    HAHA! A big middle finger to the RIAA etc. Maybe we can get the RIAA to fight the DMCA for us?

    The real question would be how could Open Source software IMPLEMENTATIONS be configured to be protected by the same clauses of the DMCA.

  • I am not more a lawyer than I am a supermodel, but here's my two bits.
    It is legal for me to lend a CD to a friend and let him make a copy for his own use.

    Not anymore; the Napster case changed the law.

    Um, not ever. I love the BetaMax decision, but let's not abuse it. It has been established that you have the right to make copies of material you have purchased. Your friend has not bought the CD so he cannot copy it.

    By the way, you can't use this dodge, either: "Sell" the CD to your friend for $1, let him copy it (as now it's "his"), then "buy" it back for $1. Once your friend sells it to you, he is legally obligated to destroy any copies he's made of it.

    Copyright law, as we know, is goofy and inconsistent. But the BetaMax decision is (relatively) lucid.

  • Unclean hands wearing gloves. (Score:3)

    by Restil ( 31903 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @05:28AM (#389877) Homepage
    True, there may be "unclean hands", but if the activity is hidden by encryption that can't be legally broken, then there is no way to determine if the activity is actually taking place. Certainly, if probable cause is available to justify a warrant to break the encryption, its possible, but as long as the service has some non infringing uses, there is no way that simply using the service can be considered probable cause.

    What is needed is some type of alarm system. Somehow force anyone attempting to monitor the data to engage in some type of handshake which will be able to capture IP addresses. If any of these IP addresses come from an unauthorized source, the "attacker" can be traced and prosecuted.

    -Restil
  • I was actually being snide-- I don't see a single reason to have a well-endowed girl in a tight white t-shirt on a site devoted to file sharing. If she's their target market, I'm not sure there will be any files there worth sharing.

    She does look a tad young, but whether she's below the age of consent varies quite a bit by jurisdiction. And as someone who was routinely assumed to be 16 or 17 well into my 20's, I'm never ready to say how old someone is without ID.
  • That's a fairly spiffy idea. I fear that expensive lawyers and other such evils may foil the plan, but it is clever.
    If the RIAA or whatever goes after the service in court and looses, they look like a bunch of dildos and are SOL. If they win, they have just set a precedent against their own copy-protection laws, including the anti-circumvention clause.
    That being sait, i'm no lawyer, and the details in the story are sparse, but i'm afraid that the big business players will find a way around doing a frontal assault on the DMCA to get rid of Aimster... I guess we'll see...
  • So I'm going to start posting ie specific comments here on slashdot.
    By IE specific, I guess you must mean "not conforming to the HTML standard". Those &nbsp's are REQUIRED BY THE SPEC to have semicolons at the end. I'll even concede the point that it's a good thing that IE works around your mistake, but I hardly think it's fair of you to flame Netscape for not doing so.

    --
  • The statement does not necessarily imply that judges are biased toward big companies. It could also point to the fact that the RIAA has done a good job of advocacy, convincing many people that intellectual property exists and that it benefits artists. The other side has not yet done much successful advocacy, so the ideas which would legitimize sharing of data are not widely known.
  • My question is: does this only apply to material which you own the copyright to and then you encrypt?

    To use a parallel in the "real world":

    If the police break in to your house without a warrant and find you doing something illegal, they're gonna have a really tough time prosecuting you for it. Makes you wonder if breaking encryption would be covered under "unlawful search and seizure."

  • And anyway, vinyl sounds better.

    No it doesn't. Click here [belgacom.net] then click Myths (can't link directly as it uses a JS redirect to the frames page).


    All your hallucinogen [pineight.com] are belong to us.

  • Re:Unclean hands wearing gloves. (Score:3)

    by general_re ( 8883 ) on Friday March 02, 2001 @06:41AM (#389889) Homepage
    One word: stenography.

    Err, I think you mean "steganography" - I don't think your secretary's shorthand would do much to hide the information being transmitted ;)
  • ok...Aimster taken to court by RIAA. Aimster wins under DMCA. RIAA has to pay $10. Aimster has to pay $10 billion to RIAA for copywrite piracy. Who won?
  • Two wrongs don't make it right
  • Regardless, even if obtained illegally it can provide PC. And if you invite them in, it's not burglary--all they have to do is get in to one of the trading groups, and per the terms of use, you've given them permission to download files from your computer. Even if they don't bother to get in on a group, they'd hardly need to get into your system to intercept the encrypted traffic and try to crack it.
  • Simple enough -- I make copies of a file, and transfer it to another computer using aimster. It's a distributed backup solution.

    The guy on the other end promises, by using the software, that he will not open those files unless he knows he can do so, legally.

    Again, it's a distributed storage solution. In the end, the "legit" use for this service is to store legit copies of things I own on other computers for legal purposes. If my house burns down, but I've "aimstered" all my files to my work machine (or my friend's machine), I can "aimster" them back when I rebuild my house.

    The previous example is good -- if I burn copies of all my CD's, drive them to the local bank and put them in a safety deposit box, no laws are being broken. But if the bank employee goes into that safety deposit box, opens it up, and listens to my CDs, he's doing something illegal. Just like if my buddy goes into his aimster folders and opens the files I sent him. You don't sue the bank here, you charge the employee with a crime. Likewise you don't sue aimster, you charge the user with a crime (if you have reason to believe he's breaking the law and can get a warrant to search his computer).
  • I've yet to see a copyright on a Virus. Also I don't think anyone would worry avout a virus writer taking them to court. The risk is too great exposing themselves to the angry mob.
  • Their claims of legality are dubious, at best. In addition, the DeCSS case has taught us that judges dispense with reason and existing precedent when profits are at stake. I think the entire P2P industry is running scared because even the possibility of a lawsuit could cripple many companies. By pulling this manuever (and appearing on /.), they have improved their visibility and drawn a target on their back.

    Lenny
  • "But in practice, judges are going to want to rule for the noble music industry against the evil music pirates."

    Thats a pretty bold blanket statement, and it's not true.

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