Comments on: P4P May Be Coming to a Network Near You

By: Bastien Koert

Bastien Koert — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:55:45 +0000

I thinks its a good move as ISPs need to be proactive to deal with thier network issues, not conent protection. ISPs don’t want to be policing the users and being seen as affecting their customers internet experience greatly, as those customers will vote with their feet and dollars and find other suppliers.

Using ISPs as a solution to piracy monitoring is placing an enormous burden on those ISPs to monitor acitivity, store the results and forward that information to the RIAA or whoever is forcing the ISPs to police the net. What a happens when that data stream is encrypted? How can the ISP tell whether the data is copyrighted or just secured? They can’t. P2P apps are also getting smarter and using encryption to secure the data streams, Vuze uses RC4, so that ISPs can’t tell what is being sent, only that its a large file.

By: JL

JL — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 23:41:25 +0000

See RFC 5632: http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc5632

By: Stacey Higginbotham

Stacey Higginbotham — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:56:47 +0000

Tim, I wasn’t trying to say all p2p is used for pirating content. P2P file sharing IS actually used by many as code for pirating content. I’m aware of various legit files transmitted via P2P, but it is a demonized technology, however fairly or unfairly that label is applied.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 18:39:22 +0000

“Peer-to-peer file sharing is pretty much code for pirating content” is demonstrably wrong. For instance, quite a few linux distributions have been distributed primarily via peer-to-peer file sharing for years.

The fact that peer-to-peer is not “pretty much code for pirating content” but is also used to legally distribute a significant amount of software that is the basis for the technologies that gigaom covers exposes a major lack of knowledge on the part of Ms. Higginbotham.

Whether or not the piece was reviewed or edited by someone else before publication, the fact that someone who doesn’t know her basics is writing for gigaom reflects poorly on the credibility of the site as a whole.