OT?: Legal question about p2p

[der.hans]

Am 01. Jun, 2005 schw=E4tzte Erik Bixby so:

> I apologize to Alan for my response.  I realized, just after hitting
> the "send" button, that I could have been a little less emotional.
> However, it is frustrating that all p2p file sharing is just assumed
> to be illicit.  This seems, to me, to be a big win on the part of the
> **IAs.

Yes, it is annoying. I look at my Azureus stats on my laptop and I see
that I have a share rating of almost 100[1] for the Open CD, which is all
Free Software and freely redistributable. I have uploaded over 80 GB[2]
from my laptop in the last couple of months. All 100% legal.

If the debian shares didn't keep breaking I'd've shared even more.

I don't know how much I've shared elsewhere because bittorrent and
bittornado don't show cumulutive stats.

> To my mind, if two people own a particular CD, they ought to be able
> to exchange .mp3 files from that CD without outside interference.  Of
> course, not being a lawyer, I don't actually know if there is a law
> somewhere that would prevent this...  The fact that all p2p file
> sharing is just assumed to be illegal is wrong, to me.  What if a CD I
> own becomes scratched and unplayable?  Should I not be able to listen
> to .mp3 files of the CD that I own, even though the physical media has
> been damaged?  There are legitimate reasons for exchanging .mp3 files,
> imho.  I think it should be a matter of personal responsibility, as to
> whether or not the files being downloaded by an individual are being
> downloaded legally, and not just assumed to be illegal.  But, that's
> me.  And, not being a lawyer, I thought I would ask the smartest group
> of people I know.  :)

I don't know about that at this point. I do know, however, that I have
specific permission from at least one band[3] to redistribute as much of
their music as I want. There are others that have released under Creative
Commons[4] licenses allowing redistribution.

[1] I've currently uploaded 94.395 times as many bits of the Open CD as
I've downloaded.

[2] All Free Software, of course. Knoppix and debian ISOs as well as the
aformentioned Open CD ISO.

[3] http://www.TravelerMusic.com/

[4] http://CreativeCommons.org/audio/

ciao,

der.hans
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