Sought for MGM v. Grokster: Non-Infringing P2P Use 377
linuxizer writes "Since my last Slashdot entry, I've been discussing various copyright issues with the ever-interesting Peter Fader. Out of those conversations came sniu.info, an attempt to document the various forms of substantial, non-infringing use over peer-to-peer networks before MGM v Grokster goes to the Supreme Court. So far I have about 50 entries, but more suggestions would be much appreciated.
Some fellow /. readers might also be interested in my fairly regular posts on copyright/IP issues, which are mostly links to interesting articles with occasional commentary."
Distro ISOs? (Score:4, Informative)
LegalTorrents.com (Score:5, Informative)
Re:BT has a valid use, for example. (Score:4, Informative)
It was a great idea in theory, but in practice, it meant beta testers were still trying to download the 2.5GB client at a piddling 10k/s days or even a week after a new beta client went live, and downloading the client via BitTorrent in the middle of a particular push was next to impossible. Personally, I found it so slow, I wound up pulling the client down off newsgroups, instead, at a much higher speed.
Blizzard's BitTorrent distribution was a cool idea, and I'm sure it saved them a few bucks worth of bandwidth, but it was a far cry from a success.
Knoppix. (Score:4, Informative)
Well... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Legal Use? Workaround... (Score:3, Informative)
And on top of that, even if somehow weird dimension where you live where that might even be true, Civil Lawsuits require you to to prove your innocence. You would still have to go to court, pay out the nose, to prove you innocence. And based on some crap you heard on the internet. Which isn't true, btw.
slackware (Score:3, Informative)
Top Selling Industry Games - STEAM (Score:2, Informative)
They Even Hired Bram Cohen (guy who wrote 1st Bittorrent client-invented/popularised and coded it) to write it for them.
What about
Isn't the BBC (British Broadcasting) trialing a TIVO like streaming T.V. thing at the moment using Peer-2-Peer tech.
And didn't Downhill Battle help people get WINXP-service hack 2 by Bittorrent.
I'm sure with Downhill Battles Blog-to-Torrent legality will really take off.
Otherwise : A World Without Sharing.
Eve patch download (Score:3, Informative)
Re:BT has a valid use, for example. (Score:4, Informative)
Knoppix (Score:5, Informative)
Knoppix has been using BitTorrent for distribution for a while. I think it's an excellent example for other distributions.
Debian tried to use a distributed system where the packages for the
Bob-
Re:BT has a valid use, for example. (Score:3, Informative)
But it *is* a substantial noninfringing use.
Anarchy Online is also distributing it's client free via Bittorrent
http://www.anarchy-online.com/free/ad_campaigns
Uses perfectly normal BT client to distribute free trial of a commercial game. And I think they have already distributed few thousand copies of the client...
Re:Distro ISOs? (Score:3, Informative)
There's an entry for "Linux Distributions" on his UPenn SNIU page [upenn.edu] under the "Other SNIU" section, roughly 2/3 of the way down. Currently lists Debian, Gentoo, and Others. Certainly the list could be extended, but there is an entry for torrents of Linux distros.
For me, this is my primary use of torrents/P2P. I've found it much easier to get first-day Linux releases via torrents than the previous madhouse of hammering the living daylights out of a handful of overloaded ftp/http mirror sites.
For distros that have been out for a while, I found my P2P mileage varied - sometimes ftp/http sites provided faster downloads. But it's been good enough often enough that I'll try a torrent first if one exists.
Fedora (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Censored? No. (Score:3, Informative)
Well, it would be worth noting, if it were true. The anthrax letters were mailed to Senators Tom Daschle and Patrick Leahy, who voted for the Patriot Act, just like every other Senator except Russ Feingold.
voting for legislation without readin (Score:2, Informative)
Some pieces of legislation were delivered from the committee to the Congressional offices less than an hour before the scheduled votes. It's not that someone held a gun to their heads and said, "Don't read this, but vote on it!" It's just that delivery was arranged so that there was no time to read it.
I seem to recall that some very high-profile, "can't vote no without a darned good reason," legislation was passed this way. But at the moment, that factoid is fuzzier than the original topic.
My usual news sources are NPR and BBC, though I've been told that both are flaming liberal puppets, and I should be using Fox News as a more balanced source.
Here, have some information (Score:1, Informative)
The laws I believe the grandparent poster is referring to are copyrighted building codes. [constructionweblinks.com]
As far as legislators not being able to read a bill before voting for or against it, well, that is up to the leadership of the legislature. They set the schedule, and decide when a vote occurs. In a few cases, such as the so-called PATRIOT act and the recent omnibus spending bill, the bill was introduced and voted upon without time being given for the legislators to read the contents of the bill. Sometimes things get snuck in. [orb6.com]
Re:Censored? No. (Score:1, Informative)
Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 [imdb.com] has a section that deals with Congress not reading the PATRIOT Act before passing it.
On his site, Moore has a page dealing with backing this claim up, "Congress did not read the Patriot Act before voting on it [michaelmoore.com]"
(I'm posting anonymously since I've already moderated (which means I'm also not the OP))
Re:Censored? No. (Score:5, Informative)
Not my assertion, but how about John Gilmore's efforts to reveal the Show ID to Fly [papersplease.org] requirement that apparently is a law we're not allowed to see. Bearing in mind that it's quite easy for conspiracy theorists to purport nonexistant secret laws, this at least has the appearance of one that does.
As for barring reading of laws to be voted on, I cannot cite a blatent example of such. However, the Patriot Act was voted on several hours after a new version was printed (running several hundred pages). It is not clear that there was full understanding of the updated text prior to the vote (this is still a subject of debate).
Re:BT has a valid use, for example. (Score:3, Informative)
I know: mod self "-1 nitpick"
-nB
Re:BT has a valid use, for example. (Score:3, Informative)
When the "right to share files" is enshrined in a constitional amendment,
The Ninth Amendment [usconstitution.net].
The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
Also the First. Code is speech.