TechWag

Big news from yesterday where two huge court cases were lost, one in the USA where the Jammie Thomas trial was declared a mistrial, and the Pirate Bay wins a huge case in Italy where the country wide ban on the site was lifted.

The question is that if “actual distribution” must be shown, is a small chunk of the file enough, or does it have to be the whole file from a single source? Bittorrent and other systems chunk data into smaller packages, if a small chunk is enough to show “actual distribution” then that is one argument, if the whole file has to come from a single source, the entire RIAA et al process falls apart because there is no way that the entire file will ever come from a single source.

Bittorrent by itself is a great technology; ask Joost or Steam, or anyone else who uses it to deliver massive data streams to an audience. Now that “actual distribution” must be shown in the USA to have a good solid case, this will also help out the people in the USA.

What this means for people who are being sued by RIAA or anyone else, not much, but what it does mean is that there are two more chinks in the process that are beneficial to people who are facing lawsuits and other problems for swapping anything on bittorrent. It also lessens the demonization of the P2P (Peer to Peer) system that has been happening since Napster was shut down.

The only way to shut down P2P systems is to demonize it, and the major labels have been having a very easy time in doing that. The loss in Italy and in the USA removes some of the stigma that surrounds using these systems. It is still risky saying that you use bittorrent in public, there are people who will judge you for that, but now that the IP groups are walking away with empty hands, no wins, they have to rethink their processes, meaning people have some breathing room.

Tags: joost, steam, bittorrent, p2p, Jammie Thomas, court case, distribution, actual distribution, pirate bay, mpaa, interesting

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