Our Role in P2P

I am concerned that the work of the Joint Committee of the Higher Education and Entertainment Communities may do more harm than good by legitimizing some role for higher ed in killing off P2P file sharing. I don’t think we have a role, I think this is a fight between the RIAA and MPAA and American society, we will just get trampled in the middle. Still, a session updating us on the P2P issue at CNI was interesting. It is clear that EDUCAUSE is finding little workable technology to help satisfy industry demands (tools like Audible Magic and ICARUS are throwing out the legitimate baby with the illegal bathwater). Brewster Kahle was in the audience and asked us to please remember that the Internet Archive depends on P2P for distribution of its legitimate content. If we need an example of real life content dependent on P2P distribution, he welcomes us to point his way.