| Maybe as a monitor and not a filter. I can't see the larger P2P networks voluntarily applying this unless the RIAA convinces Congress to pass legislation mandating it. Even then, there will be court fights delaying deployment, older versions without the filter circulating, and the inevitable new versions that are hacked to remove the filter.
However, if this were applied as a monitoring tool, then we might be getting somewhere. Suppose this was bundled into a Napster-like app. (Old Napster, not new Napster.) You could pay a fee to access the network. Once you have access, you can share/download all you like. The filter identifies and tracks the songs that are traded. This tracking is used to divide the access fees up among the copyright holders and the folks running the network.
This way everyone can be happy. Users can share and download music, the record industry can collect a fee from it, and the software company can run 100% legally also (meaning without fear of an RIAA lawsuit).
Of course, this isn't what they'll do. They'll use this technology to try to stamp out P2P and sue users into oblivion. After all, if they were smart, they would have implemented this with the original Napster instead of squashing them.
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-Jason Levine
http://www.jasons-toolbox.com/
http://www.PCQandA.com/
http://www.urateit.com/ |
