Software that will allow people to anonymously swap music and other files on the Internet could render copyrighting of songs and movies obsolete by year's end, a creator said.
A test version of the "darknet" software was made available on a Freenet Project website early Wednesday and a refined edition could soon be ready "for general consumption," Ian Clarke of Freenet said.
The software is intended to allow computer users worldwide to exchange files online in a way that hides them from industry investigators, vindictive politicians and others, Clarke said.
Music recording industry goliaths have fought to crush such renegade filesharing, which they claim fosters piracy of copyrighted material by musicians.
Darknet software has so far been treated as a tolerable bane by copyright defenders because programs have been difficult to use and limited to sharing between groups of no more than five or 10 computer users.
"We've devised a way you can have a darknet with potentially millions of users," Clarke said. "We hope we will have something suitable for launch this side of Christmas."
The Recording Industry Association of America won a recent US Supreme Court ruling that said online services that aid illicit file swapping are responsible accomplices in what amounts to theft.
Clarke said that Freenet is altruistically advancing technology and defending democratic ideals of unrestrained communication.
"Our goal has never been to encourage copyright infringement, however, you cannot have freedom of communication and protect copyright laws," he continued. "The two are mutually exclusive."
Darknet software is a natural progression in increased security for computer users, Clarke said. The program would let people weave clandestine global networks of peers they trust in an "invitation only" manner.
He predicted Freenet clandestine networks would undergo rapid "viral spreading."
Clarke equated the forming of covert online allegiances with the way French resistance fighters warily gauged who to trust during World War II.
"If you are foolish enough to establish a link to an agent of the Chinese government then the only person hurt by that would be you," said Clarke, who maintained Freenet was created to battle Internet tyranny in places such as China, Iran and Saudi Arabia.
People who make music and films deserve to be compensated for their creations, but must wake up to the fact that copyrighting is an impotent remnant of a past era, said Clarke.
Demanding legal or political intervention to prop up copyrights is misguided, Clarke said.
"In a capitalist system, if things change, you adapt," Clarke said, advising studios to invest in technology instead of lawyers.
"If you are selling water in the desert and one day it starts to rain, what do you do?" he asked rhetorically. "Go to the government and get them to ban rain, or do you sell something else?"
If Freenet's darknet software lives up to its promise, then "techniques used today to trace individual users simply will not work," according to Doug Tygar, a computer professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Tygar predicted the release of effective, wide-scale darknet software is inevitable.
"I think the music industry will have a strong challenge working in these kinds of environments," Tygar said, advising studios to evolve to survive.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist