First, any effort to eradicate a particular file from the system would result instead in its propagation. Each time you requested or stored a file, encrypted copies would be dispersed to hard drives used along the delivery route. Second, identities and locations of all files would be scrambled so users could not be pinpointed for legal action. Users can't tell what files are stored on their hard drives by the network. Freenet simply builds on the Internet's original goals, he says.
Anonymity is essential if information is to be uncensored.
Clarke believes that intellectual-property laws are based on faulty, outmoded logic. Thus, I don't think people can buy it. And I don't think people can steal it. You don't have to deprive me of my MP3 files to possess a copy. Legal ambushes of Napster-type services are actually making them more popular, Clarke and others say.