Right from the off, I think we need to face some facts about
P2P services.
While
certainly
capable of acting as intermediaries between remote parties on the Web
for legal data transfers, most peer-to-peer providers today do also
provide linking services for illicit
means.
But some entities that rely on P2P technologies like
BitTorrent are entirely valid. Vuze, a service built upon the
Azureus platform, is one such example.
Yet Vuze, like others of the legal P2P variety, is being forced to contend with ISP-led
bit-blocking measures.
BitTorrent Banned Outright
The reason, simply put, is that
anything BitTorrent-related isn’t going to be allowed through
the networks’ tubes. At all.
That doesn’t seem right, does it? Clearly such
blanket anti-P2P
measures don’t serve a just purpose.
The ISPs would
likely be
oh-so-happy to let the good guys through whilst the baddies were given
a vast brick wall to stare upon, but ISPs are entirely
impractical behemoths.
If they can (and do) inflict a great deal of nonsensical
damage consequent to performing “necessary network
maintenance” and
whatnot, a legitimate operation such as Vuze is thus dealt the short
end of the stick.
Vuze Complaining To The FCC
And because of the unfair treatment of their business, the
folks
being the Vuze startup, which provides content garnered from major
partners among the likes of the BBC, PBS, the History Channel, National
Geographic, and A&E, are now forced to complain to the FCC to
address the bit-blocking issue.
Which, let’s be be upfront
about this,
is no doubt an insurmountable hindrance to their business.
The main conflict to be had with bit blocking by various ISPs
is
that, as highly controversial as P2P technologies may be, the protocols
themselves aren’t to blame. Yet, clearly they are
blamed.
Furthermore,
the legal arguments surrounding the BitTorrent technology especially
have not be settled completely, and will not be settled for a good
while longer, making the efforts by ISPs to combat piracy through out
and out blocks of P2P traffic appear a tad troublesome.
Some might even
go so far as to call such blanket discrimination reprehensible and
worth pursuing financial recompense for.
The FCC Need To Act
If the FCC is to do right by Vuze and similar services, it
would
require that ISPs cease the blocking of P2P traffic altogether.
They would then subsequently have to spend a good long while
concerning itself with the ins and
outs of BitTorrent and other such protocols, in order to best determine
the course of action necessary to ensure the public’s
interest is cared
for – as well as those of copyright owners.
Paul Glazowski is a contributing author discussing the social networking world, his work can be found on Profy.com
