Intel agrees with Courtey.
At this week's Intel Developer Forum Conference, Intel is positively giddy about Napster, for exactly the reason Courtney Love is: the ability to unlock the traditional means of distribution, and replace it with peer-to-peer networking. The internet began as a way to share data across a network, its next step came from the broswer's graphic interface, and what Intel calls the internet's Third Age will be marked by users connecting directly to one another: peer-to-peer computing.

The commitment to peer-to-peer computing at Intel goes all the way to top, and they want everyone to share it, as Intel CEO Craig Barrett enthused in yesterday's keynote address: "Working as one, the industry can help businesses harness the promise of peer-to-peer technology to dramatically increase the capabilities of their globally distributed computing resources."

Patrick Gelsinger

Pat Gelsinger, Intel's chief technology officer, will introduce a new peer-to-peer initiative during his keynote this week, and is explicit on the source of Intel's inspiration: Napster. "The idea is that we've been, over the past five years, building out network infrastructure in a dramatic way," Gelsinger says. "The spark of this is Napster ... but underneath it is the network."

Intel's goal is to encourage every form of peer-to-peer networking, from huge enterprise-sized netwroks to networks based around families for file-swapping between relatives. According to Geslinger, new applications for networking can expand more quickly and efficiently when freed from the need to build out server infrastructure.

It may sound odd for a chip company to talk about freeing itself from infrastructure, but in fact Intel devotes a significnact part of its energy to software development, and has committed itself to developing technologies which they can in turn license to vendors who'll provide the actual networking services. Over time, as peers increasingly connect directly to each other, there will be less need for any kind of central network at all, leading in time to the evaporation of the internet as we understand it. There won't need to be gatekeepers, because there won't be any gates.

Some of the same issues related to the free distribution of music files between peers are being discussed this week at Intel's Developer Forum, as technologies like Gnutella enable ANY kinds of files to be swapped while simultaneously encrytpting both parties. There won't be anybody to take to court, because there won't be anybody there.

But to be useful at all, there has to be some way to sort the information and evaluate the reliablilty of otherwise anyonymous sources. Gelsinger will address this part of his keynote this week, but I think Courtney got there first: "Filters are replacing gatekeepers," she says. "In a world where we can get anything we want, whenever we want it, how does a company create value? By filtering. In a world without friction, the only friction people value is editing."

Much of the editing for something like Napster has already been accomplished by the self-selecting nature of the service. Indeed, a quick perusal of the huge volume of tracks available indicates an appalling homogeneity to the selection, far from the ideal that one might imagine from the idea of an artistic frontier without borders. Another way to put it is that, for all practical purposes, there is no Napster apart from the people using it.

That's why the case against them will ultimately fail. The initial injunction against Napster, since stayed several times and currently voided, reveals two enormous problems with the case the recording industry will make against. With some support from the US DIstrict Court, the plaintiffs are attempting to place the burden of proof on Napster that they AREN'T facilitating "infringing uses," flatly unconstitutional. There's nothing illegal about the MP3 file format on the one hand, and on the other, previous rulings suggest that non-commercial file-swapping may well be a fully legal enterprise.

Of course, Napster.com's involvement in the file swapping may not be entirely blameless. No matter the nature of the files being swapped, legal or not, the company was clearly hoping to make a buck off it somehow, which could conceivably leave them liable in the eyes of the lower court. If that's the ruling, I still don't think it will hold on appeal. Otherwise, every VCR manufacturer would be liable for the infringing uses of unauthorized videotape copying, for example, which is patently absurd. The legality of VCR technology and the illegality of certain kinds of copying are two different issues.

Not that the record companies want you or anyone else to see it that way. It's clear that they want to shut down both sides of it, and are using the smokescreen of intellectual rights to go after peer-to-peer networking. They're quite right to see the latter as the greater threat (and, in fact, the only real one), but dead wrong to think they can stop it.

Whether the company called Napster eeventually wins or loses this battle, I know who I'm counting on to win the war. Intel may be the first major company to commit itself to peer-to-peer technology in this global a fashion, they surely won't be the last. And if the recording industry thinks they can ignore Intel, I'd suggest they not ignore Courtney Love with a sword between her teeth.

Tim Wilson, Man About Town™, is the Producer of Plug-in Central, one of the Core Connections of the Digital Media Net.

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