Here is the pledge:
http://www.28chan.org/pledge.php

no biggie

“Dear Ed,

I recently read your speech at the Intellect Conference with interest, particularly your comments about P2P and illegal downloading.

You rightly state that “we do not know and cannot know what all the answers are…” however I’m sure many vested interests on both sides of the debate are eager to point out to you what they consider are the answers.

Let me be upfront, I use a bittorrent client to do a lot of downloading, I have a Linux operating system and depend upon free open-source software as well as an efficient bittorrent client to access legal software and works.

I consider file-sharing and piracy to be two different things. For instance, it could be argued that file-sharing actually defeats piracy. Piracy is the stealing/poaching of goods to sell on to the public and depriving the owner of those goods of profit. File-sharing is just that, sharing, but electronically. In the 80′s I would make a music tape and perhaps lend it to a friend. The friend would not pay for this and it may even be the case that he finds a band he likes and then goes on to purchase their albums.

No financial transaction takes place between the two people who share. Through the 90′s I would record songs played on the radio onto a tape or CD. Again this is not frowned upon and costs the Intellectual Property owner nothing (IP owners actually send their music FREE to radio stations to play- imagine that?!). Hence, there is an argument that file-sharing promotes creativity and profits for content producers/owners (I think there are stats flying around the internet but I don’t have any to hand).

What copyright owners are suffering from at the moment seems to be an old business model, not the effects of file-sharing. Just as the horse drawn carriage suffered the onset of the motor car. No-one tried to copyright 4 wheel transport and restrict it to horses, and so should anyone really be trying to prevent new technologies from reaching their potential? The success of Apple I-tunes shows there is a profit to be made from embracing these technologies not limiting them (Apple I-tunes is essentially a P2P/download client- just not bittorrent).

Your speech on the whole seemed fair and balanced, not drawing any conclusions or inferences. However I did find this statment confusing:

“An operator investing in next generation networks will not want it clogged up with illegal peer-to-peer content if that means no-one will pay to ensure a return on the investment…”

Is broadband now free? You see I’m paying for my connection and I’m paying the rate set by my ISP for the bandwidth that they have promised. As far as I can see, poeple like me are the ones paying higher rates for higher bandwidth, so people like me are the ones using P2P or online gaming who are expecting to see a ROI.

If my ISP does not want to take my money and invest in next generation infrastructure, then I’ll cancel my contract and give my money to a another ISP that will.

One other thing, illegal bits (the bits that make up network traffic travelling over a connection) are no different to legal bits. That is to say, an mp3 from a legal website (or mp4 from itunes) is the same size of an mp3 from an illegal P2P connection. BBC’s iPlayer (a great service and terrific step forward) is as much a threat to bandwidth as a P2P shared movie. Being illegal doesn’t make the files somehow larger (if anything DRM in the legal files cause bloat).

If ISPs and content providers can’t provide the bandwidth to handle higher traffic, then they shouldn’t be advertising the service. After all, who do you think it is who pays for higher bandwidth and drives the need for investment in better infrastructure?

I thank you for taking the time to read this email,

AF”

They don’t agree and rule on their beliefs; they look out for the entire interest of the public and any middle man in-between.

Ofcome stopped mobile networks o2, t-mobile (and any other mobile operator who has offices in the UK) to cap prices on overseas call charging if they had operations in that country too.”

I thought that was the European commissioner/ess who did that?

thanks for the info.

But… The term “glogging” seems to be used as a scare tactic.

Is P2P traffic slowing down the interwebz {clogging} like the claim?

And when will the “clog” become so bad that the interwebz “stops” all together because of it?

So we lose more rights…yay…

It could work very much like the PPL licence for playing music in public does.
The ISPs pay a licence fee which is distributed out to all parties involed; Software and Media alike.
With the licence fee being passed onto the subscribers.

The “file sharers” get their content for what they consider to be “free” (nobody ever sees hidden charges once they’re on there).
The ISPs get to keep their subcsribers, and actually increase their revenue stream.
The Internet gets to keep it open structure.
And seemingly most important of all (caugh) the greedy corporate bastards get their money for producing what they call “art”!