This article was inspired by Carlton Vogt and his excellent Enterprise Ethics newsletter. He wrote an article on the Lycos case called The Case Against Vigilantism: Is it ethical to use unethical tactics against someone you consider unethical?

Spam, like alleged P2P copyright infringement, is a significant issue. Lycos Europe was going to combat suspected spammers by distributing software that would attack the Internet servers of such spammers. The intent was not that this would be a directly harmful act like a true Denial of Service attack that floods the server with requests until the server crashes. Instead this was a kinder, gentler approach. It would send a huge number of web server requests, but not enough to crash the server. It would simply cost alleged spammers money and annoyance by using bandwidth charges, making the site occasionally unavailable, and in the end forcing the spammer to switch or harden their servers.

There's a similar situation in the music industry. The major recording labels flood the P2P networks with millions of fake files. Similar to Lycos, the recipients of such files who download them are alleged but not proven to be illegal. The user's act of downloading a file based on a file name is similarly alleged to be illegal. Similar to Lycos, the intent is not to cause damage to a user's PC, but to annoy and discourage alleged wrongdoing users.

After Lycos proposed their plan there was a firestorm of controversy. Nobody questions the ideal that users should be safe from spam. But we also have a clear justice system. It's wrong when people or companies are attacked without due process and without a trial. This was a case of vigilante justice where Lycos served as judge and jury. Lycos canceled the attack due to the public outcry.

All of us would agree that spam is bad. Furthermore it's illegal. There's a federal law against spam and courts have convicted spammers. Let's compare spam to P2P. There is no law in the US against P2P file sharing. It is not universally held to be evil. The major recording companies that comprise RIAA consider it so. But they're in the minority. Many artists say they are helped by P2P file sharing. 40 million US consumers actively share files and support P2P.

Vigilante justice was rejected for the spam industry. Why is it tolerated for P2P file sharing, where the case for wrongdoing is much less clear? Why is the entertainment industry allowed to continue with this unethical and illegal practice?

The unsurprising answer: power and influence. The difference between our two cases is that Lycos is only a medium-sized company, accountable to the public and the larger technology industry. Lycos is forced to be on the defensive in the spam attack debate.

In comparison RIAA is a powerful cartel that scorns the public and is not answerable to anyone. RIAA pursues an aggressive plan that includes influencing Congress and media, suing companies and consumers, propagandizing the public, and launching a continuous barrage of false allegations about file sharing lowering music industry sales and harboring viruses and child porn. This offensive strategy forces potential critics to react to RIAA attacks and not the issue of bogus files.

Marc Freedman
RazorPop, developer of TrustyFiles, the leading multiple network P2P file sharing software
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