Napster Clone's Curious Terms
DMCA
3/4/2001; 9:19:12 PM

'Aimster encrypts everything that is moved around its network, including all files and directories. It is impossible for anyone outside the system to monitor the network without circumventing the security. Breaking the encryption is illegal under the DMCA because the network and its programming code are copyrighted.

'This leaves copyright owners such as the music and movie industries unable to access the network to monitor the traffic without first breaking the very law they helped get pushed through Congress in 1998.'

Interesting. I saw some people on Slashdot suggest that this would not last long before a "clarification" from Congress made this illegal, but still, it's hardly the first time a custom-made law for some industry came back to bite that very industry hard. For instance, Cringley talks about the Telecommunications Act of 1996 in one of his recent columns, which is now considered a problem by the very industry that wrote the law.