On Mon, Dec 25, 2000 at 03:26:39PM -0800, Mr. Bad wrote:
> Many, many universities shut down Napster even before getting RIAA
> letters. Those gutsy schools are the exception, not the rule.
Almost all US universities are utter chickenshits when it comes to
Internet policy, and give in to unjustified harassment. Some people lost
their accounts for mirroring Mr. Bad's Cascading Style Sheets filter.
The best way to protect node operators, and recruit more, is to
continue the current fortunate trend toward widespread deployment of
non-controversial Freenet applications and content. Pigdog Journal,
apt-get, Freenet chess, newsgroup-like fora, virus definition list
distribution, whatever.
If Freenet's content becomes mostly illegal copies of copyrighted
works, the Man (both public and private sector) will roll it up like
a rug, leet crypto or no leet crypto, buddy lists or no buddy lists.
If it continues to be mostly for non-infringing uses, make that
non-controversial uses just to be on the safe side, then some important
controversial documents will be safer from unjustified harassment than
they would otherwise be, and Freenet wins. If people build and use a
Napster workalike over Freenet now, just to give the finger to the Man,
Freenet loses.
Freenet is the best tool I've seen to free creative people on the net
from having to "sell out" to afford Big Iron or Big Bandwidth. I'm going
to promote it as such in Linux Journal, and whomp up some fun but
inoffensive Freenet tools while I'm at it. (Article proposals still
welcome.)
By the way, if there's a future Freenet trial, the archives of this list
are Exhibit A. Smile for the lawyers, everyone.
--
Don Marti Non aux Brevets Logiciels
[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://petition.eurolinux.org/
http://zgp.org/~dmarti/ No to Software Patents
Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced.
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