At 05:44 PM 9/10/03 -0400, Adam Shostack wrote:

The problem with running Napster over Freedom was bandwidth costs. Users may be more willing to pay today, given the clear risk of paying $10,000 or more in fines. I'm sure that ZKS would be happy to sell someone a commercial use license.

Depends on the price, and how readily it can be adapted to P2P nets. The need certainly increases with the lawsuits. The folks profiting from P2P (eg Sharman networks) will have to include IP anonymity features in future releases. Else folks don't share, ergo their tool is useless, and no eyeballs to sell to the advertizers. The punitive fines will drive anonymity, or Sharman collapses. Since ZKS et al. were existence proofs that it can be done, and the techniques largely known, it probably will happen, with or without ZKS' code. Sorta like Hiroshima as an existance proof and neutron physics as the techniques. As an aside, I'm surprised the BSA hasn't joined in. --- "Clearly the purpose of cutting grass is to encourage the grass." Edward Teller, _Memoirs_, p 355