EFF (http://www.eff.org/) check out this site the are fighting for rights to make p2p software legal

P2P software is legal - it's what we do with it that causes the problems... ;)

Seriously, for most people, apart from swapping files that you don't have the legal right to copy, what DO people use P2P for?

I've seen it used in some businesses for copying files around to update documents or make backups, but I'd be interested to see what people use P2P for apart from copyright violation.

The EFF do a lot fo good stuff, though.

Joe

Originally posted by JoePritchard
P2P software is legal - it's what we do with it that causes the problems... ;)

Seriously, for most people, apart from swapping files that you don't have the legal right to copy, what DO people use P2P for?

I've seen it used in some businesses for copying files around to update documents or make backups, but I'd be interested to see what people use P2P for apart from copyright violation.

The EFF do a lot fo good stuff, though.

Joe

Cheers For that Joe I see what you mean. Most people just use it to downlaod music. There are some good uses of p2p but do peopple use they for good or just to get free muisc so that they dont have to pay for it

I played around with P2P a few years ago, looking to see if I could apply it to a business use.

The original idea we had was to use it to provide a means of sharing the 'wooly' data that a lot of people in a compnay accumulate on their local hard discs.

In the end we felt it better to either build our own or just use existing indexing tools.

Perhaps one way forward would be for P2P software developers to insist that every file that is shared is accompanied by some sort of digital signature that assures the system (and other users) that the person sharing teh file has the legal right to do so.

This would allow legitimate use to go on unhindered whilst putting sharers in the illegal materials in teh position of being responsible for what they're doing - if they don't have the signature applied, then the P2P network wouldn't transfer the files, and if they did and were effectively lying then the legal onus could be said to be on them as they have effectively cheated teh software.

Joe

Originally posted by JoePritchard
Perhaps one way forward would be for P2P software developers to insist that every file that is shared is accompanied by some sort of digital signature that assures the system (and other users) that the person sharing teh file has the legal right to do so.

This would allow legitimate use to go on unhindered whilst putting sharers in the illegal materials in teh position of being responsible for what they're doing - if they don't have the signature applied, then the P2P network wouldn't transfer the files, and if they did and were effectively lying then the legal onus could be said to be on them as they have effectively cheated teh software.

Joe

Yer I agree that would be a good idea