Below is my request to participate in the FTC's Workshop on "P2P Filesharing," details of which may be found at:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/workshops/filesharing/index.htm http://www.ftc.gov/os/2004/10/041015p2pfrn.pdf
Seth --- Request to Participate Federal Trade Commission Peer to Peer Filesharing Workshop Including Comments and Recommendations Seth Johnson I have been a developer of database software since the 1980's, and presently offer professional consultancy services in information quality improvement. My clients have included the Illinois Department of Agriculture, Sony Music, Bertelsmann, and Affinity Health Plan. I am also an advocate and organizer in areas of information freedom. Working with New Yorkers for Fair Use and other groups, I have worked to promote the interests of innovation in information technology for many years, including such areas as patent policy at the World Wide Web Consortium, content control in the broadband Internet, the broadcast flag, software patents, and other issues. At the Internet Commons Congress in March 2004 (http://www.nyfairuse.org/icc), I worked with Daniel Berninger, New Yorkers for Fair Use and others to bring together advocates for many different areas so that they could better coordinate their activities and concerns. A matter of some concern regarding the FTC's workshop on "P2P filesharing technology" arises from its usage of the term "P2P" or "peer to peer." Observing that Napster's centralized data servers were a legal target, some Internet users declared that the use of a central server was unnecessary, because the decentralized architecture of the Internet was inherently not subject to the legal theory behind the charges levied against Napster. As a result, downloadable applications like KaZaA, Grokster and Gnutella took on the label "P2P" to distinguish them from Napster, when in fact the ability for any computer to directly communicate with any other is built into the Internet infrastructure. In addition, the facts that these applications allowed users to open up access to their directories, and that they presented lists of files which users could select to initiate transfers, have often obscured the fact that the applications themselves do not transfer the files, and that the ability to give other users access to local directories is a feature built into ordinary operating systems. This is why "P2P filesharing" is not an appropriate name to describe these applications. These applications simply provide the same function that Napster provided with a centralized server: the ability to find files on the Internet. They are decentralized search engines. They do not perform the file transfers and they do not themselves make peer to peer possible. They allow users to implement a search engine that is distributed across many machines, and the Internet itself does the rest. The description of "P2P filesharing applications" presented in this workshop's call for participation offers nothing to distinguish KaZaA, Grokster or Gnutella from the basic functions of the Internet and ordinary, generally used operating systems. It also makes no mention of the core functionality that these applications actually do provide: search and discovery of the locations of files. Sharing files among a group of users is a basic network capability that operating systems and networks already provide. Among the goals presented by the FTC for this workshop are learning about P2P, including how it works, and discussing self-regulatory, regulatory, and technological responses to a set of risks which the workshop associates with these consumer-friendly decentralized search engines. I suggest that the testimony of those who designed the Internet and those who exercise its basic functions as a matter of their daily productive lives, will provide a stronger framework for understanding the real nature of these risks. One name that should be recommended is David Reed, one of the original architects of the underlying infrastructure of the Internet. He is well-prepared to comment on the relationship between the architecture of the Internet and the capacities for innovation for which it provides. Another name that might be considered is Bram Cohen, the author of BitTorrent. A cursory survey of Sourceforge.net will show a great variety of projects whose authors can testify to their dependence on the peer to peer architecture of the Internet, and to the fact that accessing and distributing of files among peers is an unalterable component of their work. The participation of voices representing development projects such as these is a critical consideration for this workshop. Discussion of consumers' private interests should not be confused with copyright issues. Even greater risks ensue when discussions of filters, privacy, security, adware, viruses, exposure to undesirable material and impairments of computer function are mixed with copyright issues. The result of addressing copyright concerns in the manner of protecting private consumer interests can only be that both copyright and innovation will suffer. Technological developments that affect the capacity of individuals to publish, use, and develop new uses for information will often signal new issues for copyright policy, issues which touch on areas that are necessarily out of the scope of the FTC's mandate for rulemaking or promulgating norms. In particular, among the risks mentioned in the workshop's call for participation is that of exposure of end users to liability to charges of copyright infringement. Addressing this risk within the conceptual framework that the call for participation appears to exhibit, and in terms of the kinds of responses that it cites for consideration, can reasonably be expected to lead to a very limited understanding and an encouragement of prescriptive responses that are not well-advised. More fundamentally, addressing copyright issues within this conceptual framework will result in owners of computers and makers of applications losing their capacity to develop and make use of their computers and the communications infrastructure. It may be that the structure that the workshop will eventually take is to some extent exhibited in the questions presented in the call for participation and the way it contemplates certain risks with regard to consumers' use and understanding of the features of decentralized search applications. Inasmuch as this is true, it would be advisable to adjust the structure of the workshop to more precisely reflect the nature of the subject matter. The scope of the questions should also be expanded and adapted to admit a proper examination of the relationship of the risks to the nature of the technology and the interests of flexibility and innovation; and I would urge the FTC to adapt the conceptual framework and format of the workshop to reflect this purpose more greatly. Opportunity should be provided to describe the architecture of the Internet and how it fosters innovation, and to more precisely define the nature of the applications that are the focus of the workshop. The set of questions on uses of "P2P filesharing" technology should be expanded to admit testimony of those who develop Internet applications. The questions listed in the set addressing the impact of "P2P filesharing" on copyright holders would in fact warrant an extensive process of public inquiry in themselves. Many of these questions address areas that do not pertain specifically or solely to the consideration of the impact of peer to peer technology on copyright holders. The FTC would be well advised to report on the areas alluded to by these questions separately and extensively. The sets of questions addressing identification and disclosure of risks to consumers should be adapted so that the nature and source of the risks are not misconstrued, and so that a more encompassing understanding of the sources of the risks and of prospective solutions can be developed. The questions as a whole exhibit a narrow focus on a set of applications whose characteristics are not properly recognized and understood. The set of questions addressing technological solutions should be decoupled from a narrow focus on specific applications that provide decentralized search capabilities, and should be expanded to admit a broader analysis. The solutions currently identified in the call for participation do not appear to provide for a well-designed response to the full scope of risks and implications elicited by this workshop's areas of consideration. One major source of these risks that some will mention is the undue influence on the market and on copyright policymaking of interests such as market dominant software manufacturers, publishers and the recording and motion picture industries. Monopoly interests in the operating system arena in particular interfere severely with consumers' access to, understanding of and choices with respect to software that can provide far more robust protections than they generally make use of presently. I would greatly appreciate the opportunity to participate in this workshop as a panelist. I also offer to help in advising as to the structure of the workshop and appropriate participants. Above I have mentioned David Reed and Bram Cohen. Voices I can mention in particular as offering constructive and appropriate insight for this proceeding include the following. I mention them in many cases without specific knowledge of their interest in participating, or of their having actually requested to participate: Jay Sulzberger, New Yorkers for Fair Use, jays@panix.com Brett Wynkoop, Wynn Data Limited, wynkoop@wynn.com Michael Smith, LXNY, mesmith@panix.com Miles Nordin, Developer/Systems Administrator, carton@Ivy.NET Dan Berninger, Technology Analyst, dan@danielberninger.com Adam Kosmin, WindowsRefund.net, akosmin@windowsrefund.net Andrew Odlyzko can provide rigorous empirical analysis and data that are highly pertinent to the subject areas addressed by this workshop: Andrew Odlyzko, University of Minnesota, odlyzko@dtc.umn.edu The following are just a few people who can represent specific development projects: Kevin Marks, MediAgora, kmarks@mac.com Lucas Gonze, Webjay, lgonze@panix.com Bram Cohen, BitTorrent, bram@bitconjurer.org The following are good leading voices who would make significant contributions to this workshop: David Reed, SATN.org, dpreed@reed.com Bob Frankston, SATN.org, rmfxixB1@bobf.frankston.com David Isenberg, "The Stupid Network," isen@isen.com Richard Stallman, The GNU project, rms@gnu.org David Sugar, Free Software Foundation, dyfet@gnu.org Fred von Lohmann, Electronic Frontier Foundation, fred@eff.org Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge, gbsohn@publicknowledge.org Robin Gross, IP Justice, robin@ipjustice.org Chris Hoofnagle, Electronic Privacy Information Clearinghouse, hoofnagle@epic.org Nelson Pavlosky, Free Culture, npavlos1@swarthmore.edu Thank you, Seth Johnson Committee for Independent Technology (SNIP Contact Information) _______________________________________________ p2p-hackers mailing list p2p-hackers@zgp.org http://zgp.org/mailman/listinfo/p2p-hackers _______________________________________________ Here is a web page listing P2P Conferences: http://www.neurogrid.net/twiki/bin/view/Main/PeerToPeerConferences ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org">leitl</a> ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07078, 11.61144 http://www.leitl.org 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE http://moleculardevices.org http://nanomachines.net [demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type application/pgp-signature]