Apollon soon in kde-extragear

[Andreas Pour]

Scott Wheeler wrote:

[ ... ]

> The FastTrack network -- as I understand it the primary protocol used by
> Apollon -- is overwhelmingly used for trading copyrighted material.

Please do not make factual statements based on RIAA propaganda.  Particularly
when it may eventually be presented to you in a court of law.  (Perhaps you have
done a study of traffic patterns, in which case I apologize, but also request a
copy :-) .)

> Both the
> authors of the primary client for that network (Kazzaa) and users of it have
> had legal action filed against them in the US.

Users are a different issue and the primary client is also a different issue
(foremost, it is a commercial project and copyright law is stricter if done for
commerical gain).  But OTOH are we really to say that private corporations like
RIAA can control KDE by making frivolous lawsuits?  If everyone cowed to the
monopoly-advocates, would we even have photocopiers, VCRs or CD burners (all of
which were involved in similar lawsuits)?

Does KDE plan to add support for MS "digital verification" of documents, so that
KDE software cannot access a document unless the MS database says it's OK, if to
do so might avert a lawsuit?

Where does it end for you?
 
> It's also of note that copying CDs is legal; distribution of them is not.

Incorrect; both are restricted and both fall under the "fair use" exception,
which is included in the Berne Convention.  See e.g.
http://www.iusmentis.com/copyright/crashcourse/limitations/ ("Fair use in the
Berne Convention" heading).

> K3b
> does not provide anything for aiding in the illegal step and it can be easily
> argued that in its most usual mode of operation that its use is legal.  The
> same is not true for Apollon.

This seems clearly to be your personal opinion which is not supported by any
research or facts.  In this case, I would suggest you use qualifiers like "it
seems" or "possibly" or some such other language, rather than mis-representing
it as some incontrovertible fact.

In the US case, the Supreme Court for example in the VCR case assumed that most
copying would be of copyrighted material but said VCRs did not violate copyright
anyway, due to the "fair use" exception.  IIRC similar arguments have been made
for photocopy machines (not just libraries but commercial establishments) and CD
burners.

> > There is even no law which says that it's forbidden to possess copies of
> > copyrighted material! You're even allowed to listen to the mp3s. You're not
> > allowed to install a copy of a software, though.
> > And do you really wanna say to the user: "hey, don't you have a bad
> > conscious that you downloaded a song"?
> > Imho, there are more people looking at porn-pages than people using
> > p2p-software. And you don't tell those: "hey dude, that's dirty!".
> 
> Again, all irrelevant.  Pornography is not illegal (generally speaking).

That depends entirely on where you live ;-).  And certainly there is pornography
(such as child or snuff porn) which is universally unlawful.

> As
> you point out neither is copying files generally speaking.

FTP and HTTP are all copying files generally speaking.

There is no reason FastTrack or other P2P networks cannot be used to distribute
news, political information, personally-recorded art or many other things.

Of course it is easier for the monopolists to pursue the central distributor
(the software author) then the people who actually violate the law.  The fact
that they destroy human rights in the process - the legitimate uses - is of no
concern to them.  However, that does not mean, nobody should be concerned about
that.

> If the FastTrack
> network was primarily used for legal means this would be another matter; it
> is not and there have been legal repercussions in the United States.

Again, please do not state as facts things that have not been proven.  The
lawsuits are ongoing and until it happens I prefer to believe that the entire
concept of P2P will not be invalidated - that is a clear and direct violation of
free speech and free association.

> > Other topic: Uploading. That is illegal - if the offered material is
> > copyrighted. Per default, Apollon doesn't upload and doesn't turn the user's
> > pc into a searchnode.
> >
> > So it's up to the user. And KDE and the programmers have absolutely no clue
> > of what the users do with it. They could use it for illegal upload, or maybe
> > they just download songs, or they actually share not copyrighted material.
> > Who knows? Who cares? It's not in our responsibility. Why not? Because
> > Apollon doesn't force anybody to download only copyrighted material. And
> > Apollon doesn't allow only the sharing of copyrighted material. OK, maybe a
> > little hint somewhere in the program would be good. Hints like the Americans
> > have on their coffee-cups: "HOT!"....
> 
> It is our legal responsibility to look after the liabilities and potential
> risks to the KDE project.  Whether you like it or not p2p software is a legal
> risk -- the relevant question is how large it is in its current state and
> what we can do to minimize that risk.

I think also one needs to recognize what community values are at stake.  I think
there is marginal value at stake in naming a program "KIllustrator" but banning
decentralized means of communication is another issue.

If the RIAA sues over P2P chat programs b/c they can be used also to distribute
copyrighted material, will KDE also remove support of those and support only on
AIM and MSN?

> I would also extend this to say that the KDE project has a certain obligation
> to its users to not distribute -- or at least warn them when we do --
> software that could potentially get them sued in its most usual mode of
> operation.

Certainly this would be wise - a strong warning to users that they should make
sure whoever is providing the data has the right to distribute it.

> > On Tuesday 10 February 2004 00:19, Dominique Devriese wrote:
> > >"Maybe a prominent notice could be put in place in the
> > >program saying that usage of the program is to the user's own risk,
> > >and that (s)he should always check the legality of the downloaded
> > >content ?"
> >
> > It's not in the downloader's responsibility to check that. It is the
> > uploader who might break the law, if he shares copyrighted material.
> 
> This is naive.  Making copies of copyrighted material is illegal in most
> western countries -- no matter which side of the transaction you're on.

Not to nit-pick, but it depends on the license.  By default, everything you
create, including your email I am responding to, is copyrighted, yet there have
been large numbers of copies made of it, legally - due to the implied license to
make such copies.

> We
> could go on about where the moral responsibility lies, but I'm not really
> concerned about that.
> 
> > Neither is Apollon. Apollon is just a client. The authors are German and
> > Dutch. Therefore the Copyright Law of Germany and the Netherlands is which
> > counts.
> 
> This would be true *only* if it was not hosted in KDE's CVS.  KDE e.V. owns
> the CVS server and as it "does business" in the United States and many other
> countries (specifically we have donors from the US, sponsor conferences there
> and one of the KDE e.V. board members lives there) KDE's CVS then falls into
> the scope of the laws of those countries.

Again, please do not make conclusory statements like this when this issue is
hardly settled.

What one can say is there is a risk KDE e.V. would be sued.

But again, I ask, where do we draw the line?  Did KDE stop distributing
Konqueror and KHTML when Eolas was pursuing its patent lawsuit a/g MS?  Can
anybody stop KDE from shipping any software or technology by threatening a
frivolous lawsuit?

[ ... ]

I am not saying I have the right answer here, but also I think the issue is far
more complicated than you make out.  To me P2P is a rather fundamental right,
that people can converse w/ one another w/out having a government-approved
server in the middle.  That principle to me is worth taking a risk for (and
there is also of course a greater risk of other technologies, such as CSS-1 IIRC
and the Eolas patented stuff, which KDE ships), others of course may disagree
:-).

Ciao,

Dre