Peer-to-peer file trading networks continue to thrive even after the demise of Napster - though they have not received anything close to the level of publicity Napster enjoyed. Like Napster, these networks allow users to access copies of other users' MP3 files, thus hearing their favorite songs without charge. Unlike Napster, however, the networks do not use centralized servers that they own. Rather, they take advantage of many different, decentralized servers' space.
Their decentralization makes it all the harder for copyright owners to target the new networks via lawsuits, the way they targeted Napster. Indeed, an injunction against the new networks probably would be useless unless it named every single individual user. And while our society has effective mechanisms to help large classes of plaintiffs sue, there is no good counterpart for suing large classes of defendants, and that is exactly what the industries would have to do.
For a while, therefore, it looked like there was nothing the copyright industries could do against the new peer-to-peer file trading networks. But then a new tactic was devised: If lawsuits cannot effectively stop the networks, what about hacking directly into them?
Hacking is illegal under numerous federal and state laws and precedents. It not only can trigger civil liability, it can also result in heavy jail time. But California Representative Howard Berman recently proposed a bill that would change all that.
Berman's bill, if enacted, would render copyright owners immune from liability for hacking into peer-to-peer file trading networks - as long as they do so in order to stop the dissemination of their copyrighted material. In short, it would give copyright owners a "license to hack" similar to James Bond's "license to kill": The hacking could occur, yet go entirely unpunished. What used to be a crime, or at least a violation of law, would now be authorized activity immune from liability.
The bill, which represents one of the most aggressive examples of copyright-protecting legislation ever, seems highly unlikely to pass. Yet even if it fails, it may foreshadow other, similar - if less extreme - measures in the future.
Full piece at:
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/hilden/20020820.html