Re: [dvd-discuss] The power of a click

[Scott A Crosby <crosby(at)qwes.math.cmu.edu>]

On Sun, 2 Dec 2001, Steve Stearns wrote:

> theater.  The legislature has realized that prosecuting everybody who
> shares a file on Gnutella is completely beyond their capabilities.  The

Oh, I don't know if I'd say this...

In 1997, there were about 700,000 marijuana arrests in the United
States.[1]

Gnutella may have more than 700,000 users, but marijuana is merely one
drug. I'd say tha the courts probably are up to dealing with a potential
of a million possible cases/year. Also throw in [2], which shows that if
you remove about 5% of the hosts in a gnutella network, 2/3 of what they
consider their problem goes away.

The belief that the internet is whack-a-mole doesn't seem to be supported
by the statistics accrured by the war on drugs.

Governments have historically done amazing things to millions of their own
population; the last 50 years are full of examples. Look at Stalin, Mao
Tse Tung, or Hitler's Holocaust.

By that same token, myself, as a computer scientist and researcher, must
face the fact that control and censorship may come to what I do. Much
like the right-to-read short story. [3]


Scott

[1] http://www.mpp.org/arrests/prisoners.html
[2] http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue5_10/adar/
[3] http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html