How about contributory oppression?
by Rich Fiscus on August 8th, 2008
One of the rallying cries of the RIAA is responsibility for the supposed economic effects of P2P file sharing. Even though their claims that file sharing robs artists everywhere is laughable, it’s still worth considering the general point about looking at the unintended consequences of your actions.
In that spirit I submit for your consideration the RIAA’s jihad against consumers. Rather than concentrating on the standard issues of how defendants are bullied into settling lawsuits based on evidence that’s flimsy at best and illegally collected at worst, let’s consider what side effects their legal campaign may have. We’ll concentrate on what it means to the people of China.
The Internet’s growing influence on Chinese culture is at odds with the government’s hard line position on freedom of information. While they realize the internet is an essential tool for reaching their economic goals in both the short and long term, Chinese officials fear its inherent openness, and have gone to extraordinary lengths to restrict its use.
From re-education camps for those supposedly afflicted with internet addiction to the Great Firewall of China, the government clearly understands the fundamental role of information in freedom. They’re doing everything they can to control the information available to and from their citizenry, and no one is more helpful to their cause than the RIAA.
Let’s go a step further and assume that we can truly trust the RIAA not to abuse our personal information gathered in the process of identifying P2P copyright infringers. We’ll even stipulate that our benevolent ISPs would never do anything unsavory with data collected in the course of inspecting all traffic that crosses their networks. Even in this fantasy land there’s no reason to trust the Chinese government with the same technology.
There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the reason China is in favor of the sort of packet inspection software the RIAA would like all ISPs to use. The same technology that would allow copyrighted works to be recognized could also any other content the Chinese government deems dangerous. Whether it’s video of government workers beating an ordinary citizen to death or simply a Western movie that espouses the sort of freedom the Chinese people are denied it could be recognized and effectively kept from the people.
If it’s fair for hold P2P companies responsible for contributary infringement by users of their networks, what’s the appropriate punishment for developing software that will be used to oppress literally billions of people?
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