Re: [TCLUG:14628] RE: Napster

[Philip C Mendelsohn <mend0070@tc.umn.edu>]

On Tue, 14 Mar 2000, Eric M. Hopper wrote:

> 	It is hard to see how downloading songs all day is really a
> learning experience, but setting up Napster and getting your first few
> songs is.  Blocking prevents even that.
> 
> 	IMHO, Napster is just as deserving as a distribution download.
> If you caught someone downloading ten different distributions of Linux
> and burning them onto CDs, would you block their access to sites that
> had ISO images?

I would just throw in the two cents worth that says that downloading
anything cannot possibly be as useful as actually *doing*
something.  Writing code.  Debugging.  I'm not anti- downloads entirely,
but I spent plenty of educational time in computer labs with *no* outside
access.

> 	Perhaps a budding musician is downloading the collected works of
> Jim Morrison for study.  *shrug* Making blanket value judgements is
> dangerous and wrong.

Is that not a blanket judgment of blanket judgments?  Should it not more
correctly be "making the wrong blanket value judgments is likely to offend
some?"  


> 	I don't know.  You are sometimes forced into that position.
> Value judgements are hard, and shouldn't be treated lightly.  Blocking
> all Napster traffic is making a blanket value judgement that most likely
> isn't correct.

Again, that's also a blanket value judgment.  I am not arguing against,
merely pointing out that your argument is specious.  You may have a case
for allowing *any* access, provided it's *worthwhile*, but you can't
legislate honesty or morality.  Not even as a sys admin!  

Bad people piss in the pool.  Since there's no algorithm for
discriminating for good or bad people, sometimes it leaves no choice but
to eliminate the (not crucial) freedom on the table, for the greater good.  
That is to say, it is a lesser evil to block and share the bandwidth than
to let one bad person eat all of it.

> It's a difficult problem,

It's certainly not a well-defined problem!

Wow, who put a quarter in?  I guess I'm done now!

Phil M

-- 
Life is complex:
It has real and imaginary components.
                     --Unknown