[Sussex] File-sharing suffers major defeat

[Geoffrey J Teale]

On Monday 27 June 2005 17:51, Andrew Guard wrote:
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/4627679.stm
>
> Well thats it, Intel will have sack all R&D teams and take on Lawers
> etc.  It realy this bad, forget about Linux as no one going to write any
> code for it now.
>
>
> Realy is this serious for every thing.

Hmmm, Andrew, you are being a little over dramatic.  Yes it is a somewhat 
surprising and important decision that sets a precedent  in the US but it's 
also very controversial and precedents can be overturned just as easily as 
they can be made.

Moreover there is zero reason why this should have any impact on F/L/OSS 
development in general - only those applications  that fall into the area of 
"file sharing" when they are coupled with provision of services in support 
media file sharing.

Much as I dislike the music and film industries aggressive attitude and their 
hypocritical arguments they are actually dealing with a copyright abuse that 
is increasingly common.  I don't like the solution but I also think that 
blind support of file sharing and rampant disregard for copyright just makes 
people look ludicrous.

Ultimately copyright is the cornerstone of F/L/OSS and it's only it's legal 
weight that allows us to set the terms of use at all. 


-- 
Geoffrey J. Teale
Free Software Foundation