Dear p2p operators -
p2pnet.net News:- Here it is – the final draft of the Hollywood / Attorney Generals letter aimed at the independent p2p industry.
Addressed to Adam Eisgrau, executive director P2P United, the p2p industry trade and lobby group, and signed individually by state AGs from California to Wisconsin, it reads:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Re: Peer-to-Peer Software
Dear Mr. Eisgrau:
We are writing to encourage your companies to take concrete and meaningful steps to address the serious risks posed to the consumers of our States by your company’s peer-to-peer (’P2P’) file-sharing technology. By addressing such problems today as the use of P2P networks to disseminate pornography, invade privacy and infringe copyrights, P2P software may one day realize its potential as a means for facilitating a wide range of collaborative, project management, business planning, and academic/education activities. At present, P2P software has too many times been hijacked by those who use it for illegal purposes to which the vast majority of our consumers do not wish to be exposed.
We have carefully considered your response to the issues raised by P2P software as presented during the June 15-18, 2004 Summer Meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General and the June 8-9, 2004 National Association of Attorneys General Internet Conference. However, we find that this response fails to address the issues raised by P2P software.
Our consumers need to be provided with the information necessary to understand this technology and to make informed decisions concerning its use. P2P file-sharing technology works by allowing consumers to download free software that enables them to directly share files stored on their hard drive with other users. This type of direct access to one’s computer differentiates P2P file-sharing technology from garden-variety e-mail accounts and commercial search engines such as Google and Yahoo.
One substantial and ever-growing use of P2P software is as a method of disseminating pornography, including child pornography. While at least some of your companies do provide ‘filters’ to help screen out unwanted files, including presumably those containing pornography, those filters appear to work by focusing on language in the file’s description or the file’s title rather than on the file’s content. P2P users interested in disseminating and receiving offensive or illegal material, such as child pornography, can simply use an innocuous file title and/or description in order to bypass those filters. Consequently, P2P users need to be made aware that they are exposing themselves, and their children, to widespread availability of pornographic material when they download and install P2P file-sharing programs on their computers.
Furthermore, P2P file-sharing technology can allow its users to access the files of other users, even when the computer is ‘off’ if the computer itself is connected to the Internet via broadband. P2P users, including both home users and small businesses, who do not properly understand this software have inadvertently given other P2P users access to tax returns, medical files, financial records, personal e- mail, and confidential documents stored on their computers. Combating identity theft is one of our priorities, and many of our States have enacted laws to stop it. Consequently, P2P users need to be properly educated so that they will not inadvertently share personal files on their hard drives with other users of your P2P file-sharing technology.
The illegal uses of P2P technology are having an adverse impact on our States’ consumers, economies, and general welfare. There are serious concerns that P2P software is replacing Internet chat rooms and e- mail as a medium of choice for the dissemination of pornography, especially child pornography. Market forces and technological limitations of the Internet (e.g., the need to pay for web space and bandwidth) have combined to make peer-topeer software a more attractive alternative to the Internet as a means of disseminating pornography. Peer-to-peer users and distributors of child pornography particularly believe that their anonymity on P2P networks protects them from detection by la w enforcement. According to a January 25, 2004 New York Times Magazine article, ‘[c]yber networks like KaZaa and Morpheus – have become the Mexican border of virtual sexual exploitation.’ The Federal Trade Commission, the United States General Accounting Office, and the Judiciary Committee of the United States Senate, among others, have all taken testimony or issued reports on the increasing use of P2P software to disseminate pornography.
P2P file-sharing programs also are being used to illegally trade copyrighted music, movies, software, and video games, contributing to economic losses. The Business Software Alliance estimates that its members lost $13 billion in revenue last year due to software piracy. According to a February 20, 2004 CNN article, ‘U.S. software companies lose up to $12 billion a year in piracy according to the Software and Information Industry Association. Music companies lost more than $4.6 billion worldwide last year, according to the RIAA [Recording Industry Association of America] and movie industry officials pegged their annual losses from bootlegged films at more than $3.5 billion.’
{This problem is exacerbated by the default settings that you use as part of the installation process of P2P software. One default setting designates each and every file in a user’s hard drive for sharing with other users of P2P software. A second default setting leaves a user’s computer continuously accessible to the Internet. We would urge your companies not to select such default settings as part of your software installation process.)
The article further reveals that ‘[t]he entertainment and computer industry have tried to stem piracy by making CDs and DVDs harder to duplicate. But the rise of free file-sharing networks on the Internet has made it easy for millions of individuals to distribute songs, movies, and software worldwide.’ Similarly, a March 28, 2003 USA Today article described a
recent hearing of the California Senate Select Committee on the Entertainment Industry in which ‘committee chairman Kevin Murray, D-Los Angeles, downloaded the KaZaa media desktop player in under 20 seconds, then downloaded numerous songs and the Oscar-winning movie Chicago, which hasn’t been released on DVD.’
Some of your companies have taken initial steps to warn users of P2P software that it may not be employed for illegal ends, which is commendable. However, more needs to be done by your companies to warn your P2P users as to the specific legal and personal risks they face when they use P2P technology for the illegal ends of disseminating pornography and ’sharing’ copyrighted music, movies, and software.
We have, in the past, initiated Internet-related actions to stop individuals from disseminating unwanted spam, including deceptive e- mail designed to lure unsuspecting adults and children to pornographic web sites. We will, as appropriate, continue to initiate such actions in the future to stop deceptive and illegal practices by users of the Internet, including users of P2P software.
However, the undertaking of enforcement actions against individual users does not excuse your companies from fostering deceptive practices on our consumers that invade their privacy and threaten their security. Nor do they excuse your companies from avoiding software design changes that deliberately prevent law enforcement in our States from prosecuting P2P users for violations of the law.
We view with alarm reports that P2P software is being used by your companies as a means of transmitting unwanted spyware and adware that is bundled with the P2P software. Spyware aids an individual or a corporation in gathering information about P2P users without their consent or in asserting control over P2P users’ computers without their consent. In the
past, we have initiated enforcement actions against Internet web sites that, without the knowledge of our consumers, placed ‘cookies’ on their computers designed to track their use of the Internet. We would ask you to take concrete and meaningful steps to avoid the infringement of the privacy and security of our citizens by bundling unwanted spyware and adware with your software.
We view with equal alarm reports that at least some P2P file-sharing services are adding encryption features to those services. The addition of such encryption features will make it more difficult, if not impossible, for law enforcement to police users of P2P technology in order to prosecute crimes such as child pornography. Encryption only reinforces the perception that P2P technology is being used primarily for illegal ends. Accordingly, we would ask you to refrain from making design changes to your software that prevent law enforcement in our States from investigating and enforcing the law.
(It also has come to our attention that P2P file-sharing technology is being used as a means of transmitting computer viruses and worms because conventional virus protection programs, such as those marketed by Novell, do not scan files exchanged via such technology. If such is the case, then it would be incumbent upon your companies to warn your users of this risk.)
Finally, we are concerned that the filters currently in use are inadequate as a means of protecting P2P users, and their children, from unwanted and offensive materials, such as child pornography. We believe that meaningful steps can and should be taken by the industry to develop more adequate filters capable of better protecting P2P parents and children from unwanted or offensive material. Not warning parents about the presence of, and then reasonably providing them with the ability to block or remove, obscene and illegal materials from their computers is a serious threat to the health and safety of children and families in our States.
We take seriously our responsibility to protect our citizens from misleading or deceptive practices, and to ensure that our citizens are given the information necessary to making an informed decision. And, we take seriously the need to investigate and prosecute violations of our laws wherever they may be taking place – on the Internet, in the brick and mortar world, or on P2P networks.
We believe that it is in no one’s interest for P2P technology to be used in order to promote unlawful or deceptive activities. Rather, we believe that concrete and meaningful steps can and should be taken to address the problems we have raised in this letter. It is only by taking such steps that P2P networks will be able to realize their innovative potential as a 21st century virtual collaboration and project management tool for regional or nationwide academic, business, home, and governmental activities.
We look forward to working closely with you to proactively address these problems.
Sincerely,
Bill Lockyer, et al
===================
Go here for a .pdf of the document, complete with signatures of the 40.
Go here for the story.
August 5th, 2004 at 10:40 pm
“Furthermore, P2P file-sharing technology can allow its users to access the files of other users, even when the computer is ‘off’ if the computer itself is connected to the Internet via broadband.”
If my computer is ‘off’, it’s not doing anything, let alone sharing all my prized documents and personal info. These people need to get a clue.
August 6th, 2004 at 1:45 am
no kiding, with the power turned off, the only thing still runing is the clock.(it has its only batery).
August 6th, 2004 at 2:50 am
“We view with alarm reports that P2P software is being used by your companies as a means of transmitting unwanted spyware and adware that is bundled with the P2P software. Spyware aids an individual or a corporation in gathering information about P2P users without their consent or in asserting control over P2P users’ computers without their consent. In the past, we have initiated enforcement actions against Internet web sites that, without the knowledge of our consumers, placed ‘cookies’ on their computers designed to track their use of the Internet. We would ask you to take concrete and meaningful steps to avoid the infringement of the privacy and security of our citizens by bundling unwanted spyware and adware with your software.”
Ummm, hello, practically every P2P app that has any adware either asks if you want it to install it, or notifies you and makes you accept a user agreement to install it. Meanwhile, simply surfing the web or visiting sites nets you thousands of more annoying and harmful spyware that are designed to be hard to remove.
If you’re so adamant about controling spyware, BAN IT! We’re sick of it, not because of when we *agree* to put in on our computers, but when they sneak in on without our knowledge and drain all our system resources. The people upstairs need to get a clue, because it’s apparent they have none.
August 6th, 2004 at 2:21 pm
For god’s sakes, take a few computer classes or talk to any nine or ten year old about what is and what is not possible when your computer is off. That line in and of itself eliminates any credibility they might have on internet issues.
August 7th, 2004 at 12:31 am
“We take seriously our responsibility to protect our citizens from misleading or deceptive practices”
That one gets me
August 7th, 2004 at 1:06 am
yeh, and i like “According to a January 25, 2004 New York Times Magazine article, ‘[c]yber networks like KaZaa and Morpheus – have become the Mexican border of virtual sexual exploitation.’
there ya go. if the NYT says so, it must be true and is good as some kind of proof of something in a letter signed by all those ag’s
August 7th, 2004 at 2:50 am
“It is only by taking such steps that P2P networks will be able to realize their innovative potential as a 21st century virtual collaboration and project management tool”
p2p is ideal as a legal file sharing tool. There’s no need to try and change it’s current functionality to meet bureaucrats criteria.
August 7th, 2004 at 4:30 am
I think the author meant that files that originated from your computer can still be shared by other computers after you turn your computer off. For example, if you have a text file with all your credit card numbers(i dont know why anybody would do that) and somebody downloads it. Now you turn your computer off, however that file is still accessable through that person who downloaded it from you.
August 7th, 2004 at 10:24 am
Then wouldn’t it be easier to say that it is shared by other computers than making himself look like such a fool in front of the whole P2P community?
August 7th, 2004 at 2:51 pm
That’s another way of looking at it. But I think the AG letter means exactly what it says – “even when the computer is ‘off’. (http://p2pnet.net/story/2083)
And who knows who the author(s) was(were)?
August 9th, 2004 at 2:17 am
You guys must admit though, with the increasing usage of P2P programs, we will suffer in the long end. If we continue to download music and movies, without purchasing them, then companies are losing money which they use to produce these movies and music. So if we continue to rob these companies and people, then eventually there will be nothing worth downloading.
The part about users computer being open to other people, well that is the users responsibility to take care of. If they choose to use the program, then they choose to open their computer voluntarily. So if they contract some virus or some of their personal information is stolen, then it mostly their fault.
August 9th, 2004 at 3:41 am
This is, of course, a clearly unbiased opinion from someone with absolutely no interest in things from a corporate perspective.
Cheers!
August 10th, 2004 at 12:24 am
Unfortunately it is not the P2P knowlagable who write the laws.
It’s the P2P UNknolegable who believe what the “authorities” tell them is true and write and pass laws on bad information.
August 10th, 2004 at 1:09 am
“Music companies lost more than $4.6 billion worldwide last year, according to the RIAA [Recording Industry Association of America] and movie industry officials pegged their annual losses from bootlegged films at more than $3.5 billion.’”
$4.6 Billion, $3.5 Billion! This is a drop in the bucket for these industries. They don’t whine when some music star or movie star buys a new stretch Escalade limo or Lear jet for every day of the week. And they don’t seem to feel guilty at all for charging the public (fans!) $18.00 for a CD or $25.00 for a DVD that costs them less than $.50 to make. Maybe they should hire new accountants to do some housecleaning and find out where those billions of dollars really went!
August 10th, 2004 at 9:07 am
For what it’s worth, I counted 6 instances in 15 paragraphs of the phrase “child pornography.”
…
Insidious, isn’t it? Any defense of p2p is becoming a defense of child pornography simply because they repeated the phrase so many times. They didn’t even need to show evidence as to the apparently massive kiddie porn epidemic.
August 13th, 2004 at 6:19 pm
i think your right about us suffering in the long run with music sharing. hopefully they’ll lower the prices of cd’s before that happens though. They all are still paid very well.
August 13th, 2004 at 6:24 pm
All in all, the quality of music you hear is the ultimate issue here. A purchased CD will always have better quality to it and there is enough music lovers who love and need to hear that quality. Same with movies and other types of programing.
August 14th, 2004 at 12:05 am
“Music companies lost more than $4.6 billion worldwide last year, according to the RIAA [Recording Industry Association of America] and movie industry officials pegged their annual losses from bootlegged films at more than $3.5 billion.’”
That, of course, assumes that everyone who downloaded a copyrighted work both had the desire AND ability to pay the price set by the publishers. I suspect that the vast majority of folks who download such stuff can’t afford to pay for it or they would, so the numbers are obviously inflated grossly.
August 17th, 2004 at 4:57 pm
i agree, i couldn’t help noticing how many times they managed to bring up that phrase and issue with out backing it up with any proof.