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List:       kde-policies
Subject:    Re: Proposal for P2P disclaimer text
From:       Marc Mutz <mutz () kde ! org>
Date:       2004-03-15 21:36:04
Message-ID: 200403152236.31330.mutz () kde ! org
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On Monday 15 March 2004 15:46, Andreas Pour wrote:
<snip>
> In case you have not been paying attention to current events, the
> RIAA is suing a number of people for P2P file sharing.  They have
> sued hundreds of defendants.  This isn't just some patent
> hypothetical - or do you mean, we should wait until the KDE project
> is shut down, before reacting to legal threats to the project?

As far as I understand it, they are suing the users, not the vendors.
What's wrong with waiting until they approach KDE w.r.t. the 
distribution of P2P software, then cry "Help" loudly and at the same 
time remove the offending software from CVS until someone else stops 
this madness in court?

If we proactively try to follow all legislations KDE software is used 
in, we won't have time to code anymore. As an extreme example: No-one 
proposes to add a disclaimer to Konq saying "browsing web sites with 
illegal content might get you in jail. E.g. if you live in Ger*any and 
download a copy of "Mein Kampf" from the internet, you infringe on the 
copyright of the the Bavarian state bibliography."

> > As I said, disclaimers such as those presented here can do more
> > harm than help.
>
> Said and proven / convinced is another issue.

There was a ruling in Germany that voided this popular distancing in a 
case of linking to warez sites (or similar). I don't suck this out of 
my fingers, as we say in Germany ;) And yes, I think those 
circumvention protection laws go to far, and I hope they are turned 
down in the German contitutional court sometime in the future, but, 
indeed, that has no bearing here.

> > It's quite hard to convince a judge of their validity if
> > they disclaim stuff you knew beforehand. They raise the impression
> > that you only tried to cover your ass with them, not stand to them.
>
> I don't see how whether you agree with the law or not has any
> bearing.  The issue one needs to worry about is "contributory
> infringement", which has a certain legal meaning, and whether or not
> in your heart of hearts you think that copyright law is good or bad
> for society is another issue.

What I want to say is that adding this disclaimer to P2P software, but 
not to Konq or kget or knode or ksirc or kopete gives the impression 
that we are aware of the overproprotional use (w.r.t. your typical web 
brwoser) of P2P software in copyright infringements. Yet we still ship 
it. And why not? Many tools can be used to break the law.

In this light, the disclaimer could fire back when the judge asks either 
of these two questions:
1. Given that you know that P2P software is mostly used for unlicensed 
copying of copyrighted material, why do you continue to ship it?
2. Given that you know that web browsers and IM software can be used for 
unlicensed copying of copyrighted material, why didn't you add this 
disclaimer to that kind of software?

> > And that is exactly the case here. It's like distancing yourself
> > from warez sites and at the same time maintaining a warez link
> > list.
>
> I don't see the similarity.  If KDE encourages unlawful use then such
> encouragement should immediately stop.  Perhaps you are projecting
> your use of the software onto others?
<snip>

I am guilty, yes. I share patches over ksirc. I could as well share 
mp3's. What's the diff between IM and P2P, then? Shall we add this 
disclaimer to every network-enabled application? We post each other 
fish:// URLs to documents and patches over IRC. We could as well post 
fish:// URLs to movies or mp3's.

That's what I'm saying: If you start this here (P2P), where do you want 
to stop?

OTOH, I'm fine with a KDE-wide disclaimer "KDE is network transparent. 
Therefore, almost every KDE application can conceivably be used for 
unlicensed coping of copyrighted material. yadda yadda." That would be 
much more trustworthy than singling out P2P software, which is just a 
funny way to do ftp/www.

Marc

-- 
[...] the USA needs a German product: Vergangenheitsbewältigung
   -- Craig Morris: US boycott of products from countries against war?
      www.telepolis.de

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