Snocap's filtering system is one route to making P2P work within the existing copyright framework. Existing post-Napster P2P ventures like Grokster are concerned that filtering is or can lead to privacy intrusions and free speech problems, as discussed today in the Washington Post.

It is a little ironic to find P2P systems the installation of which can easily open up the contents of a user's hard drive to public view, concerned about privacy. But never mind. Statutory filtering mandates do raise privacy and free speech concerns with constitutional dimensions. Filtering systems that evolve in the market do not. It remains to be seen whether consumer's desire for a less anarchic P2P experience will push the market in that direction or not.

Would filtering systems that evolve in response to attempts to avoid liability for vicarious copyright infringement count as mandates or as markets? I find this a difficult problem to wrap my mind around. Perhaps it depends on the nature of the liability rules in question are, how many alternatives they leave open, and so on. My preliminary answer to this first question is that these would count as markets, in-so-far as they arise fairly directly out of a legal regime that provides the ground rules that form the basis of the markets in question.

Note that filtering that arose in response to the need to avoid liability for "indecency," say, would not qualify as an evolution in the market by this standard.

posted by Solveig Singleton @ 1:37 PM | DRM & Watermarks, etc., Internet: P2P, Search Engines..., Privacy and Security

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