Ohio U makes all P2P software illegal

After receiving over 100 notices of prelitigation from the RIAA, Ohio University has decreed that all peer-to-peer file-sharing software is no longer allowed at the university. Staff members spent nearly 120 hours going through all of the letters. Chief Information Officer Bryce Bible says that if peer-to-peer networks are left unchecked, they could consume all of the bandwidth and network resources, which they actually did a few years ago when Napster became widely available. Consequences for using these types of software are disconnection from the Internet until students agree to the acceptable use policy for the first offense and disconnection and referral to University Judiciaries for successive violations.


However, some people use peer-to-peer software for legitimate purposes. Students may buy or rent movies and television shows on BitTorrent, one of the software that is banned from the university now. They could also download Ubuntu, a program for Linux from BitTorrent.

I do not think that Ohio University should ban all peer-to-peer software. Just because some people use them for illegitimate purposes does not mean that no one should be able to use them at all. They should just continue to punish those students who use the programs illegally so that the whole university does not have to pay for those students' crimes.

Utah Legislature v Google

Recently, the Legislature of Utah passed a bill called the Trademark Protection Act. This bill, which will go into effect on June 30, will curb keyword - triggered advertising. For example, if you type in overstock.com into Google's search engine, they give you sponsored links for other competitors of Overstock. According to this new law, Overstock would be able to sue Google for that. This is a very controversial law as would be expected and lawyers for the Legislature said that was "very probable" that the law would be found unconstitutional. Many also think that the state is likely to be sued. Google spokesperson, Adam Kovacevich, says that the law will "hurt consumers, violate free speech, and will be inconsistent with both established U.S. trademark law and our capitalist system." Germany and France have similar laws in place; however, and Google is still able to operate there says Representative David Clark, House sponsor of the law. He also states that the law places his state first for trademark protection without going over the edge.

I do not see the problem with having competitors' links come up when you search for a specific site. Advertisements are everywhere on the internet and usually even when sponsored links do come up, people do not click on them if they were specifically looking for something else. For example say you were driving down the street looking for Stop n Shop in a new neighborhood. If you found it and it is across the street from Shaw's, chances are you are not going to go into Shaw's since you were specifically seeking out Stop n Shop. Now if you think Shaw's is a better store and see that it is there and then choose to go to it instead, it is not because you saw it that you decided to go in, but because you have a preference for that store, which you had before you ever drove by it. Therefore, I think this law is unnecessary and could reduce competition.

RIAA and MPAA want permission to pretext

The California Senate wants to make pretexting, using false statements and other misleading practices to get personal information, illegal to protect people's privacy better. In other words, a employee of the RIAA anti-piracy department can obtain information on you or me and use that information when he is talking to a suspect. For example, if he uses his real name and address, the suspect would probably be able to figure out who he works for; however if he uses someone else's name and address, the suspect will have no idea. The RIAA and MPAA want the bill to not apply to them as they claim they need to use deception in order to catch bootleggers and that this bill would seriously undermine their anti-piracy effort. Brad Buckles, the RIAA's executive vice president for anti-piracy, says he wants the criminal to feel comfortable working with him and giving him information, which he can only do by pretexting. The bill comes up for an initial hearing on Tuesday.

I think it is absolutely ridiculous that the RIAA and MPAA can go around taking other people's personal information just to try to catch a bootlegger. They should find other ways to do it because in this case I do not think the ends justifies the means. Furthermore, their amendment was written very broadly saying "any owner of a copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret be able to use pretexting or other investigative techniques to obtain personal information about a customer or employee when seeking to enforce intellectual property rights." This includes far too many people that would be given full permission to use your or my personal information. I just do not think it is worth that invasion of privacy.

In Europe, piracy becomes a felony

The European Union Parliament is attempting to make its first harmonized criminal code. This particular legislation would make piracy a felony. The maximum penalty must be at least 300,000 euros and/or up to four years in prison if the crime is committed by a criminal organization or offenses that endangers others' health and safety. Lesser penalties can include criminal or civil fines of up to 100,000 euros. Although this law may seem harsh, it does not apply to those who just share files privately and do not receive any monetary benefits, ie. those who share the file with a friend and do not sell them to others.

This new law does not seem unreasonable to me. Those who try to sell copyrighted information are committing a far more serious crime than those who just share it with a friend for no monetary gain. This would be similar to stealing clothes or another tangible item and then selling it on the street. The punishment for lesser penalties seems similar to what the US has; however the punishment of imprisonment for larger crimes does seem a bit over the top. Also, I think labelling this crime as a felony is kind of ridiculous as it pales in comparison to other crimes that are considered felonies.