Bad For All P2Ps?
 

CALIFORNIA
Napster Ruling Is Upheld
Music: In a decision that could affect other online systems, appeals court backs the order that shut down the free service.

JON HEALEY, TIMES STAFF WRITER

A federal appeals panel Monday gave record and film companies another piece of ammunition in their fight against online piracy, upholding a lower court order that shut down Napster Inc.'s free song-sharing service.
The ruling has little impact on Redwood City-based Napster, which has abandoned its free service in favor of one that pays labels and songwriters for each song copied.
But lawyers for the music industry say it could rein in other online systems, including Morpheus, Kazaa and Grokster. The implication of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals' ruling is that all file-sharing services "have a continuing obligation to adapt to the technology that may be available" for protecting copyrighted material against illegal copying, said Cary Ramos, an attorney for the National Music Publishers Assn.
http://www.latimes.com/technology/la...s%2Dtechnology

- js.

Re: Bad For All P2Ps?
 

Well, I've read the ruling, and I think the recording industry lawyers are overstating things. By my reading of the ruling, the court still would not endorse an change to the Napster's architecture. Pure distributed network should therefore be safe. However, networks that have some element of centralization but use distribution in order to be able to deny knowledge of infringment (FastTrack-based networks may fall under this category) may find that this ruling sets a bad precendent for them.