EFF Asks Court to OK Morpheus
 

Electronic Frontier Foundation Media Release

EFF Asks Court to OK Morpheus Peer-to-Peer Software,

Reject Hollywood Attempts to Stifle Innovation

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, January 22, 2002


Latest shot fired in the Morpheus>RIAA Battle.:SHO:

as the fight against file sharing moves into round two, we'll see the gloves coming off. napster was an easy target the courts could understand and punish. this next generation of p2p technology is more complex and ambiguous in its' legality. it will take more riaa/mpaa firepower to stop - and a stronger defense to hold them back. thanks for the update buzz.:tu:

- js.

Hey JS
 

I'd be lying if I said my curiosity wasn't peaked when you mentioned the gannett source mentioning the RIAA taking some covert action against the file sharing community.

Can you elaborate a bit more?

:doh: Edited to add that the "was" should read "wasn't" peaked. Listening to The Smile, CBS Radio Mystery Theater - debuted 11.23.1982. That's what I get for posting while distracted!!

it's some thing i've been thinking about for a year or so gr that i call a "viral app". it's a court ordered virus that effectively hijacks a pgm like morpheus if its makers claim they can't control the product. it overtakes it and hands it to a court appointed executor, removing control from a daily user.

sources at gannett said the riaa was ready to launch their version last december, but it was designed to slow down transfers, not hand off complete control, and as such was similar to a run of the mill virus or dos attack. but the most important difference was that it was not ordered by a court.

why they've waited is unclear (another "mystery" for you gr?lol!) they said the dmca gave them permission to "protect their copyrights" by hacking peoples' pcs. others were less enthusiastic about the purported legality and feared massive repercussions both criminal and civil as well as even larger amounts of bad pr. while the act of "recording and trading" may be a legal gray area, it's abundantly clear that launching a virus is - so far - most definitely illegal. lucky us - so far.

- js.

I kind of figured that something like this might come about. It's true that programs like Morpheus have learn from the Napster days, but they are not immune to sabotage. The programs themselves are always vulnerable. Let's hope that the government does not get ambitious.

Jack, I didn't exactly follow your explanation of how a "viral app" would work. How would it be able to "overtake" Morpheus and remove it from my control? :con: :con: :)

If I remeber correctly, it is an app that will request a dl from you and do it at an extremly slow rate, while not permitting you to cancil it. This is to use up the bandwidth and render your node unuseable to all others. I could be wrong, if so would some one refresh me please?

That's what I remember being the case.

Oh well

localhosts
riaa.com 127.0.0.1


I'd be happier if that wasn't the same line M$ uses to attempt to get around the legal system.

hi pgs,

there are almost unlimited ways of hacking these pgms but i concentrate on ones that might "update" your client making it a version a court could control, with approved apps overtaking previous ones, in much the same way that fasttracks'/streamcasts' v1.3 ran separately, marginalizing & eventually "terminating" previous versions.

- js.

I think the only thing holding the RIAA back is the liability issue...and their first attempt to get protection from any liability that arises from any damage done to anyone's PC was shut down in this shameful episode:

http://www.wired.com/news/conflict/0,2100,47552,00.html

The attempt to classify anti-pirating initiatives as anti-terrorist initiatives was a particularly disgraceful exploitation of the 9/11 tragedy.

with most of the governments of the world @ the moment in right wing mode(witch means very little in most places as the partys on the right are organized by right elements in those partys :) )
the shameful way public rights and assets have been sold out to these corprate mobsters
the excuse being usually due to some "tragedy"or some "war"
but enough of th@!
if these things r going 2 happen ppl should get active now to protect the acual fast trac system from this sort of corporate vanalisim

may be we should all stay on version 1.3 as long as we all can!
and if its a corporate trojan we will have to modify a virus .dat or ad-aware reflist?
we will work something out
:love: v's :MAD:

Hmmm...this thread has been quite enlightening (and disturbing). I never considered myself or any of you terrorists before! :RE: :m:

It seems there would be ways to avoid updating the software. Or could they make it auto-update? It just seems that if it were that easy to hack file-sharing apps, they would have done it already or covertly had somebody do it. :dz: :RE: