Submitted by: arnesr
Source: Salon.com
Could it really be that programmers will be held responsible for what users do with their hard work? Would Smith & Wesson be held responsible for every kill in wich one of their guns was involved?
As the long arm of the law reaches Napster and its lookalikes, programmers could be held responsible for what others do with their code. Shawn C. Reimerdes awoke on July 26, confident that his own fate had nothing to do with Napster's. He had just released Yo!NK, a file-sharing program that could be used to trade copyrighted MP3s, but since the Yo!NK network consists of various servers whose owners voluntarily host the program, Reimerdes figured he was safe. |
But then this happened...
He (the creator, ed.) discovered in a chat room that U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel had issued a sweeping injunction against Napster, blaming Napster's founder, Shawn Fanning, for creating a "monster" that has encouraged millions of people to download pirated MP3s. In her unforgiving ruling, Patel ordered the service to remove copyrighted songs within a matter of days --a sentence that would require Napster to shut down. |
But of course, as a true coder and free thinker of this time, he won't give up:
"It's possible that the RIAA/MPAA will try and crush all the coders to ensure that their new business models survive," says Reimerdes. "The DeCSS lawsuit was a scary example of just how far the corporations will go to try to stop technology and computer science. But more lawsuits against technology will just mean more ingenious software being written. You cannot silence the techno-elite. The idea has already been planted and others will help it evolve." |
We all hope of course that the appeals court will rule in favour of Napster and alike services, so we can all enjoy it for years to come
