Apple users collecting widgets, the desktop/dashboard tools designed to make tasks easier, will have to look beyond the official Apple site for P2P help. Apple and DashboardWidgets.com each cited policies against carrying widgets that can be used for “illegal file sharing” when they turned down Andrew Dupont’s Mac OSX BitTorrent widget.
Instead of promoting or facilitating legit P2P or file sharing, they prefer to close the door completely. DashboardWidgets.com explained: “We decided early on that we did not want to promote piracy in any way, choosing to exclude widgets related to P2P, BitTorrent, etc. While the items in the screenshot are legal downloads, the main use (though usually unpublished) for BitTorrent is illegal downloading.”
I came across this via David Weinberger, who sees it as another example of how the internet is being split between mainstream and underground: “Step by step, we’re intentionally creating a new Dark Ages for ourselves, maddeningly when a new connected enlightenment is within our reach.”
Well worth thinking about as some companies layer on DRM, creating anything from walled gardens to content ghettoes, while others are trying to create businesses based on open content models. The split is only growing wider.
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