I don't believe both are legal (in the eyes of the Hollywood lawyers). Both are distributing privately produced material freely without legal permission - i.e. music & movies which are owned by private individuals and distrobuted/sold at their discretion.

The trouble arises when their is one individual controling or (in the lawyer minds) prompting the distribution of the material without permission. In this case Napster has one central location acting as a go-between. (And anyone, please correct me if I am wrong) People work through the one central server to connect to their associates to trade files. The safe occurs with Scour and ??? - hmmm, I forgot the third that was reently closed down. Anyways, this "Gnutella" and its bretherin (Newtella, Aimster, Toadnode, ect.) do not work through one source but connect to each other indvidually. There isn't one controlling source for the lawyers to attack and take down.

A good comparison would be Cell phones and CB radios. If you knock out the local Cell tower (where the transmitters sit) you've basically whiped out the Cell phones. On the other hand, there is no central location for CB radios. To knock them out, you have to attack each one individually.

I think the big test will happen when some private group opens a Napster-like server outside the US jurisdication (say like Sealand which is just outside of Great Britian and is famous for "illegal" internet hosting).

Well, I hope I've helped. Good luck on your paper. Bye the bye, what is UMD? Is it the University of Minnesota?

Huck
huckleberryfinn@plopmail.com