Finally, a legitimate use for file-sharing

The two big drivers for technology seem to be space exploration and pornography, and they've done it again. One of the Gonzalez justice department's policies has been to start enforcing 2257 requirements, which say that anybody producing sexually explicit material has to keep records proving all the participants are over 18, and anybody showing other people's work is a "secondary producer". So if a commercial website puts the box-cover of a DVD they're selling on a website, they're a secondary producer and have to keep records too. It also applies to simulated sex, which means it applies to all mainstream films, but Gonzalez isn't dumb enough to try enforcing that. Anyways, tracking down some runaway who did a movie in 1995 to ask for some ID is supposed to be difficult enough to get some stuff off the market, and getting every company to send every store their records for every movie is a lot of paperwork.

Now, AVN is reporting that a new web-service company is creating a file-sharing application which will automatically distribute electronic records from the databases of primary producers to all the secondary producers. It's a multi-platform system which is supposed to work with any 2257 record-keeping system anybody uses, and automatically keep everyone up to date. Now there's actually a legitimate application of technology for facilitating the distribution of encrypted files over the internet besides copyright infringement. Could this be... an inconvenient truth?

Okay, there are actually other applications besides copyright infringement, like using torrents to distribute large files like new versions of GPL software, but this is one of the first things I've heard of that didn't have to lamely add "But mostly it's good for downloading episodes of Battlestar Galactica to play on my ipod." God only knows what a manned mission to Mars will make us come up with. (And you have to cut me some slack on the Al Gore reference, but it's too perfect that his invention is now thwarting Alberto Gonzalez and Tipper Gore.)