[Smoketoomuch]

I just skimmed trough the article, and the first thing that occured to me is that this is not necessarily a bad thing. If Brilliant succeeds, they will very much depend on file-sharing - only if we are able to share our files and exchange whatever we want would we use their softwares. Which means, that Brilliant now has an active interest in keeping filesharing alive. I understand privacy conserns, but then, it is in the best interest of Brilliant now to make our privacy a top priority issue. If users in any way could be harrassed because they host copyrighted contents, even a few cases would create such a bad press and hype that the use of there software would be discontinued.

Hmm. Since their entire business model will depend on our satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the p2p "service", or rather, side effect, they will (if they have brains) do anything to improve it, make it competetive with other, free and open source p2p services like the Gnutella network, for instance. To my best knowledge, no company had such an investment (monetary) in a p2p programm. Moreover, the whole article is very carefully phrased ... of course there is no mention of the fact that they must provide top quality file-swapping service if they are to survive. On first reading, especially the use of idle processing power brings into mind those projects (Nasa, Cancer research) that are already running and have very positive connotations. What I wanted to say is that the way they put it, is quite safe from legal attacks. The first well phrased justification or example that supports their claim for similarity with the betamax case. In time, they can even justifiable say, that what the RIAA or MPAA wants (filtering out content) would endanger their business modell - but of course, to stand on equal ground with those industries, they have to grow and succeed.

When I think more about this, I'm sure I would find some negative aspects also, but for now, I wait in great anticipation...