According to China Tech News, the Internet Society of China has announced it’s establishing a Broadband P2P Application Promotion Alliance to “encourage[] the development of intellectual property containing P2P network application core technologies, and … regulate the technology’s application and promotion based on intellectual property rights. It will also bridge the government’s supervisory role in this area.” The article goes on to say that “ISC plans to help regulate Chinese companies’ activities to ensure that illegal activities are not spawned by P2P in China.”
This is an interesting move, and the fact that it comes immediately on the heels of stepped-up US pressure concerning intellectual property protection is surely not a coincidence. The ISC, which is made up of the biggest Chinese media and internet players and governed by the Ministry of Information Industry, is sending a message that it means to get serious about cleaning up Internet piracy by regulating P2P. The move also parallels the Chinese government’s recent efforts to regulate blogs, as efforts to tighten control over online behavior increase.
It appears the ISC (and thus the government) envisions reigning in and controlling the unrulier, open aspects of P2P technology while promoting its development in officially sanctioned ways to further P2P’s “commercial application in China.” While I’m sure China would love to be a leader in the development (and patenting) of P2P technologies, it’s difficult to know just how effectively P2P systems–which have historically developed freely (though at times in response to stricter copyright enforcement)–can develop under ostensibly tight government supervision and in what will probably be proprietary formats.
Another question is, how might China’s regulation of P2P technology–assuming it is able to regulate it effectively–impact the technology elsewhere in the world? The article intimates that the government’s intention now is to regulate only Chinese companies’ use of P2P. But it does not seem like a quantum leap to imagine the government claiming jurisdiction to regulate any P2P network that crosses its borders. To what extent will China redefine P2P on its terms, for the world, with soft censorship baked into the next generation of P2P technology (to borrow a phrase from Rebecca MacKinnon)?
Though this announcement seems innocuous enough (and perhaps it is more harmless than I fear), I cannot help but feel it smacks of further official tightening of control over the Web in the name of IPR protection and economic/social development. Could this be another step toward a more subservient Web, envisioned by Prof. Tim Wu, who argues: “China’s long-term vision is clear: an Internet that feels free and acts as an engine of economic progress yet in no way threatens the Communist Party’s monopoly on power. With every passing day the Chinese Internet reflects that vision more closely. It portends a future for the Web that we’re only beginning to understand—one in which powerful countries refashion the global network to suit themselves.”