A Legal BitTorrent-Based Service Is Blocked By ISPs, Looks To FCC For Remedy

Let’s face facts. Most peer-to-peer services today, while certainly capable of acting as intermediaries between remote parties on the Web for legal data transfers, do provide linking services for illicit means.

But some entities that rely on P2P technologies like BitTorrent are entirely valid. Vuze, a service built upon the Azureus platform, is one such example.

Yet Vuze, like others of the legal P2P variety, is being forced to contend with ISP-led bit-blocking measures. The reason, simply put, is that anything BitTorrent-related isn’t going to be allowed through the networks’ tubes. At all.

That doesn’t seem right, does it? Clearly such blanket anti-P2P measures don’t serve a just purpose. Yes, the ISPs would likely be oh-so-happy to let the good guys through whilst the baddies were given a vast brick wall to stare upon, but because ISPs are entirely impractical behemoths that can inflict a great deal of nonsensical damage consequently to performing “necessary network maintenance” and whatnot, a legitimate operation such as Vuze is thus dealt the short end of the stick.

And because of the unfair treatment of their business, the folks being the Vuze startup, which provides content garnered from major partners among the likes of the BBC, PBS, the History Channel, National Geographic, and A&E, are now forced to complain to the FCC to address the bit-blocking issue. Which, let’s be be upfront about this, is no doubt an insurmountable hindrance to their business.

The main conflict to be had with bit blocking by various ISPs is that, as highly controversial as P2P technologies may be, the protocols themselves aren’t to blame. Yet, clearly they are blamed. Furthermore, the legal arguments surrounding the BitTorrent technology especially have not be settled completely, and will not be settled for a good while longer, making the efforts by ISPs to combat piracy through out and out blocks of P2P traffic appear a tad troublesome. Some might even go so far as to call such blanket discrimination reprehensible and worth pursuing financial recompense for.

If the FCC is to do right by Vuze and similar services, it would require that ISPs cease the blocking of P2P traffic altogether, and subsequently spend a good long while concerning itself with the ins and outs of BitTorrent and other such protocols, in order to best determine the course of action necessary to ensure the public’s interest is cared for - as well as those of copyright owners.