On 8/1/03 9:10 AM, "Jeremy G Byrne" <jeremy[_at_]iz.org> wrote:
> At 13:45 31/07/03 -0400, Brock S. wrote:
>> You are referring to whether person A would be able to determine
>> if person B has copyrighted material on person B's computer.
>
> No, I am referring to whether _anyone_ (including person B)
> would be able to determine if person B has copyrighted
> material on person B's computer.
>
> Person B--unless she has intentionally "downloaded" copyrighted
> material from the datastore (eg. requested a copyrighted
> mp3 from the datastore and saved it to the "My Music" folder
> on her hard drive)--has no idea and no practical way of
> determining whether copyrighted material exists on her
> computer as a result of her participation in the network.
> All she knows is that she has allocated a portion of her
> hard drive for the use of the network, and that data is
> periodically sent to or retrieved from (that area of) her
> hard drive by the software which controls the network. The
> part of the datastore on her hard drive operates as a "black
> box" into which it is seriously non-trivial to delve, its
> contents small fragments of thousands of files, each
> encrypted and effectively unintelligible to any agent other
> than the network itself.
>
> In addition, in a large network it is vanishingly unlikely
> that any legally significant portion of any individual
> copyrighted work would be present on any individual machine
> participating in the network. When the network is operating
> effectively, a large work (file) might be split into many
> thousands of fragments, each of which could be located on
> a different machine (or machines, as multiple redundancy is
> necessary to overcome efficiency and availability issues)
> on the network.
>
> This situation likewise allows participants to "upload"
> material to the network without retaining (potentially
> unlawful) copies of the original works on their individual
> machines. For example, adding a banned essay to the datastore
> would result in the file being fragmented and the fragments
> encrypted and distributed across the network, almost certainly
> retaining no part of the essay on the originating machine
> (and rendering unrecognisable any fragment of the essay
> retained by chance).
>
> CYa,
> JEREMY
Of course, if you're referring to the so-called "black box," it would seem
that no one would know (including the computer operator) whether that
portion of the computer contained copyrighted materials. Ultimately, this is
a question of fact for the court, and I am unfamiliar with the inner
workings of this type of system.
If, on the other hand, you are suggesting that a computer user would not,
for example, know that they have an album in the iTunes folder, which may be
available on an open network, then you are unlikely to prevail in an
infringement action based on your purported lack of knowledge.
Brock
Received on Fri Aug 01 2003 - 22:19:53 GMT