"If you didn't pay for it, you've stolen it!"

[Major Variola (ret)]

At 07:43 AM 10/24/03 -0700, Steve Schear wrote:
>At 06:28 AM 10/24/2003 -0400, Roy M. Silvernail wrote:
>>The problem with the central premise, of course, is that without some
Big
>>(Brother) Central Server, there's just no way to track simultaneous
usage, so
>>there's no way to assure that the number of users <= the number of
owners.

Wrong.

>Why not have each individual's PC which offered to lend do the
>accounting.  This means their PC must be on-line whenever someone who
>didn't pay wants to listen, limiting the number of copies available,
but it
>could be fully decentralized.

Yes but it needn't be online constantly.

What *is* a library?

1. A library is legal.  A library needn't be licensed by any state
entity.

2. Thus, I can declare my computer a library.  The only requirement is
that
I own a license to what I lend, and that only 1 user exercise that
license
at a time.  That is what a library is.

3. Among library-users, we contractually require that "borrowed"
materials
be not used after the "return" date.  Since bits are bits, "borrowing"
is "copying"
and "returning" is simply not exercising the bits.  When something is
being used no one
else can use the same.  We use our library-patron-contract to implement
what
meatspace does with objects --usable at one place at one time.

4. We could implement this by merely keeping a flag for each file in our
collection
denoting that the file is borrowed.  We would be obligated not to
relend it until after the return date; the library patron would be
similarly obligated
not to use it afterwards (without checking it out again).

5. We do *not* need to be constantly online for this, any more than a
library needs to be
open 24 hours a day.  We *do* need a shared timebase and good IDs for
objects.

A legal assault on this mechanism is an assault on bricks and mortar
libraries,
ie the right to lend a book to an associate.  Even if that associate
xeroxes the book
without our knowing it.

Perhaps these features could be added to KaZaa.   (Simply: when a file
is uploaded
from your disk, you move it from shared to not shared directory for a
day.  You also
have some lameass clickthrough library-patron contract.)

Gentlemen, start your lawyers.

---
Talk softly and carry a big lawyer.  ---Hunter S Roosevelt