Amy Alexander on Sun, 14 May 2000 19:04:35 +0200 (CEST) |
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<nettime> Gnutella, Napster, Freenet, and individual publication |
I've been reading the recent threads regarding the various intellectual property and economic issues raised by Napster, Freenet, and Gnutella... Something for us to keep in mind is the potential of software such as Gnutella and Freenet for increasing publishing opportunities for individuals. Although both of these programs are in a rudimentary form at this point, they have some potential in two key areas: putting serving (i.e. publishing) in the hands of individuals, and creating anonymity. A system similar in concept to Freenet but running within the existing Web structure, was proposed by Ian Goldberg and David Wagner. This proposed system known as the Rewebber system. In their paper posted at http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue3_4/goldberg/index.html they point out: “Yet we must not forget that anonymous publishers have played an important role throughout the history of publication. Freedom of anonymous speech is an essential component of free speech, and freedom of speech is a critical part of any healthy democracy. For instance, the United States Supreme Court has consistently upheld protection for anonymous publication of political speech. As Justice Stevens wrote in the McIntyre v Ohio Election Commission majority opinion, ‘Under our Constitution, anonymous pamphleteering is not a pernicious, fraudulent practice, but an honorable tradition of advocacy and of dissent. Anonymity is a shield from the tyranny of the majority.'” This function of anonymity must of course be kept in mind, as much of the focus in the media is currently on anonymity's function in hiding people who duplicate copyrighted pop songs, write viruses, and deal in child pornography. In particular, the issue of copyright infringement has been receiving quite a bit of attention lately. However, copyright infringement turns out to be quite a bit more complex than “what should we do with people who distribute Metallica MP3's?” For example, last year I had a run-in with the DuPont Company, in which they threatened to sue over a net art piece I did. The piece spoofed corporate takeovers by pretending that my domain, plagiarist.org, had taken over 27 of the world's largest corporations. My position was that the work was a parody, commentary covered under Fair Use. DuPont's position was, um... well, they never laid it out in writing, actually. They did, however, make some scary phone calls to my employer, whom they assumed was my ISP, to tell them that my site was threatening and violent, and that they and the other 26 companies would be suing if the piece in which I mentioned them was not immediately removed. And they sent an interesting fax with all sorts of “evidence” against me, including a copy of a newsgroup posting about some totally unrelated person called “plagiarist” who had evidently made death threats against someone from the Jewish Defense League. http://plagiarist.org/acq/watchass.jpg My employer asked me to remove the piece immediately, which I did, but I replaced it with a page documenting DuPont's actions, including the sending of the erroneous “death threat” page. http://plagiarist.org/acquisitions.html A week later, they sent a fax trying to get that one removed too.... When asked three times by my employer to submit written documentation of what exactly about my piece was trademark or copyright infringement, DuPont responded each time with “we'll get back to you.” My intention here is not to start a discussion on the legality of my project; however, I did want to bring it up as an example of how the *specter* of copyright infringement can be used to quell free speech that someone with deep legal pockets doesn't happen to like. (There are, are of course, numerous other examples of this happening all over the web.) BTW, in the US, the DMCA, the act everyone loves to hate, actually has some usefulness here. (Usual "I am not a lawyer" disclaimer applies here, though I did speak with one.) With regard to ISP liability: if the ISP has a registered copyright agent with the US Copyright Office, then the complainant is required to contact that agent with copyright complaints, specifying what was infringed upon and what was infringing, rather than just threatening a lawsuit without explaining what is legally problematic. (I'm not sure how this relates to international situations – i.e. does it apply if the server is in the US, or if the complainant's material is?) BTW, although I'm focusing here on issues stemming from copyright/trademark-related intimidation because of my personal experience, obviously there are many other impediments to free expression, including direct and indirect political repression, social intimidation, employee-whistle-blowing fears, etc. Anyway, notice how heavily the ISP figured in to the above discussion. They exist in the current web structure as something of a parental figure – when the user “misbehaves,” go threaten the parent (who doesn't want trouble on account of this bratty little user), and who will summarily remove the offending material, cut off the user's account, and probably make her stand in the corner and clean out the garage, too. The benefits of both anonymity and somehow running one's own server become attractive. The running of one's own server does not need to mean running a web server in the traditional sense, however. It is one option, but it is not possible for everyone, for reasons of cost, expertise, local availability, etc. Even in the US, where high-speed internet access is comparatively cheap, the affordable, consumer-level DSL/cable accounts typically offer dynamic IP addressing and much slower upload than download speeds – in other words, everything you need to be a super-consumer, but nothing you need if you want to publish (serve) your own content. And, while operating your own web server gives one a substantial degree of autonomous control, it currently doesn't offer much in the way of anonymity. Even in the way of autonomous control, it's limited – though you've removed one level of the hierarchy, there is always *somebody* upstream of you (your backbone provider, etc.) This is where these newer methods of “serving,” i.e. Freenet, Gnutella, and Napster, become interesting. First of all, Napster. I find it the least interesting of the three because a) it's limited to distributing MP3 files, b) it's not really decentralized – there are several separate Napster networks, with users logging in to a server on one of the networks, and c) it has virtually no anonymity. It is also proprietary software, which means that the public won't have the opportunity to add features or create modified clients. However, it does allow users with ordinary PC's and dynamic IP dialup accounts to serve content. This is a very useful functionality. Freenet holds a lot of promise for both anonymity and server independence, as the content distributes itself across the network. It is currently in the most nascent state of the three programs – i.e. doesn't have a search capability yet, making it hard to find something you're interested in, and it seems to require a fairly high geek quotient to get it running. However, it does run on an ordinary PC, and doesn't require a static IP (though according to the FAQ, they prefer a semi-permanent net connection, such as DSL or cable modem.) I haven't tried Freenet out yet myself; perhaps someone who has can give some insight into his or her experience. Freenet is open source, and as far as I know, doesn't have limitations on the content types that can be distributed – at any rate, I'm certain that it's not just for MP3's. Finally, Gnutella. Gnutella is fairly easy to use, and again, runs on an ordinary PC. A machine running Gnutella is called a “servent”; i.e., it is simultaneously both a client and a server. Again, it allows ordinary users with ordinary PC's and dialup accounts to serve content. Although a very new program, it already includes a built-in search capability. And, unlike Napster, it is entirely decentralized; i.e., there is one large network, with no centralized servers or user accounts. And, it is open source, so that people can, and already have begun to, write clients with various features. For example, someone has written a Perl module that implements the Gnutella protocol/commands... at least some of them... so, for example, someone could write a web-based interface into Gnutella, create a project that works between Gnutella and the web, etc. Although there is no real server anonymity on Gnutella, its distributed nature gives it an advantage over static web servers. For example, a search for “DeCSS” on Gnutella yielded many, many sites from which one could download the DeCSS source code. Although the MPAA went to great lengths to go after all the static web sites that hosted the DeCSS code, just imagine what they'd have to do to hunt down all these home PC's with dynamic IP's and changing content. I'm not saying it's not possible: look at what Metallica did, although they never did attempt to match Napster usernames with real identities, and they took advantage of Napster's centralized nature by making one big complaint to Napster, rather than 317,000 individual complaints to users or ISPs. In any case, going after Gnutella servents would seem to raise the bar quite a bit, and at some point, it becomes too costly and pointless for corporations (or rock bands) to match the dynamic IP's with individuals and chase after throngs of home PC users... making Ian Clarke's assertion of the pending demise of intellectual property issues feasible. Gnutella can be used with all file types. However, in the current Gnutella software, only MP3 files can be streamed (maybe RealAudio files too; I didn't check this.) All other file types must be downloaded, then viewed. It's an odd experience: one can “browse” audio files, but one must download text and HTML files and manually open them in the browser to read them. This is no doubt due to the fact that, despite its flexibility, Gnutella is primarily designed for swapping files, not for online viewing. However, since Gnutella is open source, anyone can write a Gnutella client that allows inline viewing of text and image files. It would also be useful if it could be used to enable individuals to serve net-radio, but, it presently only streams MP3 files, not live MP3 streams. A workaround, I think, could be to serve the stream on your dynamic IP'ed PC using a standard MP3 server, and then serve a file on Gnutella that tells people your IP of the moment.... then they simply have to search for keywords in your “pointer” file. This is of course a little clunky, but perhaps someone could write a Gnutella client that integrates things a bit more? I'm also not totally convinced of Gnutella's search capabilities. Gnutella does a “live” search of content being shared by all connected servents at the moment. (You can also look at the “search monitor,” which shows you a real-time updated list of all the searches taking place on your servent; this, of course, can be pretty entertaining...) Anyway, searching "everywhere" in real time is certainly a slow process, perhaps infinite. I put a file with a peculiar name in my Gnutella shared directory, and then proceeded to do a search for that name. I waited a long time, but Gnutella never found it. I'm not sure if Gnutella simply ignores the local machine when doing a search, or if Gnutella just never found it. Of course, this could be figured out by running two simultaneous Gnutellas on machines with different IP addresses; has anyone tried this? So, while the ideal distributed serving situation for individuals may not be here yet, the options certainly seem to be expanding. I am curious, though, as to how many individuals will make use of it for distributing content beyond MP3's, warez, porn, and assorted pictures of Brittany Spears. For example, the Hotline program, which offers file sharing, chat, and newsgroups on an ordinary PC, has been around for years, but doesn't seem to have caught on much beyond the warez/porn crowds. I'm curious as to why that is: the server software cost? The bandwidth? Ties up your machine? Or is it lack of awareness, a preference for the web, or... ? I'd like to hear what others think about it all.... -amy # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: majordomo@bbs.thing.net and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime@bbs.thing.net