At 02:37 AM 10/25/02 +0100, Adam Back wrote:

Seems to me this would pass current IP laws because it is like a radio station which broadcast the name of a song and the user is expected to insert the CD in his player and play along to keep up with the commentary, only automated and with open APIs for the "load and play this CD track" instructions so people can hook it up to whatever is convenient to them.

Such a station resembles an editor who suggests articles by giving a pointer, e.g., ISBN, Journal cite, or URL. Some editors (like talk-free radio stations) may not even provide commentary, but their subscribers value the information implicit in their choices. [One listens to radio, follows editors' pointers, etc. because one desires fresh bits... and a "good" Editor increases the probability that you will encounter fresh bits you like. Even unintentional Editors are valuable: Using KaZaa, one can scan all of other nodes' shared files; finding a user with content you like (tastes like yours) via a regular search often yields a cache of good content.] Version 2 of the BackBox should handle video, with DVD/TiVo++ URIs, too.