Slashdot | Europe To Adopt Strict Internet Copyright Law

[George at Orwellian.Org]

( Yes, the WSJ title actually says "…" ;-)

Yea Intel! Fuck Jeff Gordon! (oh, wrong article)

http://interactive.wsj.com/articles/SB986949574599148237.htm
#    
#    April 11, 2001 
#    
#    An Anticopyright Activist Gets Funding For a Start-Up That Makes 
#    … Software
#    
#    By LEE GOMES Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
#    
#    An Irish computer programmer known for crusading against copyright 
#    and other "intellectual property" laws has received $4 million 
#    from Intel Corp. and others to start a for-profit, proprietary 
#    company based on his software.
#    
#    Ian Clark, the 24-year-old author of a software program called 
#    FreeNet, is also a co-founder of Uprizer Inc., a Los Angeles 
#    start-up that Wednesday is scheduled to announce the investment 
#    from Intel and two venture-capital firms.
#    
#    Mr. Clark is something of a hero, as well as a frequent speaker 
#    and panelist, in the small segment of the computer world that 
#    holds little respect for copyright or similar intellectual-pr
#    operty laws. In interviews, Mr. Clark has said that one day 
#    copyright laws will be regarded the way society now regards 
#    witch-burning.
#    
#    His FreeNet program is a file-transfer program that is similar 
#    to Napster, Gnutella and other file-sharing systems. Like 
#    Gnutella, FreeNet is completely decentralized and operates without 
#    the need for a central server controlling its operations. But 
#    FreeNet (freenet.sourceforge.net/)goes an extra step in that 
#    the files that are passed around with FreeNet are encrypted, 
#    or scrambled, in a way that makes it impossible for outsiders 
#    to see what is being passed around on the network.
#    
#    While FreeNet has received extensive publicity in the past year, 
#    partly because of the interest in Napster, it has far fewer actual 
#    users than does software based on Gnutella or Napster. FreeNet 
#    users have complained that the software is an inefficient system, 
#    in part because of the large amount of computer resources expended 
#    in keeping data encrypted and private.
#    
#    Mr. Clark's company, Uprizer, will be creating software based 
#    on FreeNet. But despite his somewhat novel ideas about copyright 
#    laws, Uprizer will be selling traditional proprietary software.
#    
#    Uprizer said Mr. Clark wasn't available to discuss Uprizer. But 
#    Rob Kramer, the Uprizer co-founder who will be its chief 
#    executive, maintained that Uprizer and FreeNet aren't related 
#    to each other. "Ian is a very smart person who has other goals 
#    in his life, and Uprizer is one of them," Mr. Kramer said.
#    
#    Mr. Kramer said Uprizer will be selling software that will allow 
#    computer users, such as people inside companies, to exchange 
#    information and files with each other. Mr. Kramer said Uprizer 
#    will be using technology built into FreeNet that automatically 
#    brings files close to the groups of people wanting them. He said, 
#    though, that Uprizer's product won't have the anonymity and 
#    encryption that is built into FreeNet.
#    
#    Uprizer is another company in what is being called "peer-to-peer" 
#    computing, a catch-all phrase that is used to describe a number 
#    of different ways that computers are being linked to perform 
#    common tasks.