BitTorrent + INDUCE Act + Linspire 5.0

[Monty J. Harder]

"Jonathan Hutchins" <hutchins at tarcanfel.org> wrote:

> The only difference between these programs and bittorrent is that
bittorrent
> uses multiple sources to copy files to multiple locations.
>
> You can not make a moral judgement on a method of transferring files.  It
just
> doesn't make sense.

  Hoplophobia doesn't make sense to me either.  But there are people who
believe that tools can be inherently bad, and therefore must be banned.  I
think they're quite irrational about it, but somehow they've managed to get
their psychological disorder enshrined into law.  And once you buy the logic
that says that certain guns are evil because only criminals use them, or
payphones and pagers are just for drug dealers, the next logical step is
that certain file transfer programs are just for copyright infringement.

  We understand that the core of computer networking is copying data from
one place to another.  Hell, just USING a computer is about copying bits
from HD to RAM so it can be executed.  What we face is a well-financed
campaign to end the general-purpose computer, and replace it with 'trusted'
computers (that is to say 'trusted by copyright holders') that are locked
down to prevent copying bits to the 'wrong' place.  It'll mean the end of
Linux if they get away with it.