State AGs take on P-to-P vendors

WASHINGTON – Peer-to-peer (P-to-P) software vendors must re-engineer their software to prevent illegal file trading, and they must do a better job of warning users of the dangers of trading illegal files, said a letter sent by attorneys general from 47 U.S. states and territories to P-to-P vendors Thursday.

The letter, signed by the attorneys general of California, Texas and Florida and others, calls for P-to-P vendors to also warn users about the amount of pornography traded through P-to-P software, including child pornography. “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,” the letter says.

The attorneys general also accuse P-to-P software of hurting their economies by encouraging illegal file trading, quoting the Business Software Alliance and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) as saying piracy costs their industries billions of dollars each year. The letter notes that some P-to-P vendors have taken steps to warn users about using the software to illegally trade files. “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,” the letter says.

The letter notes the attorneys general will take action against P-to-P users who illegally trade files. Law enforcement actions against P-to-P users don’t “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,” the letter says.

Representatives of P-to-P vendors took issue with parts of the letter. P2P United, a P-to-P trade group, is working with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to better educate and warn users of potential problems with using P-to-P software, said Adam Eisgrau, executive director of the group. “This is not a new issue, and it’s something we’ll continue to work on,” he said.

But the letter’s call for P-to-P vendors to redesign their software, such as including centralized content filters, would cause the “neutering” of the potential of P-to-P, Eisgrau added. “That cannot be done without radically changing the innovative nature of this software,” he said.

With 47 attorneys general signing the letter, Eisgrau’s group takes the complaints seriously, he said. But Eisgrau suggested copyright debates are best worked out in the U.S. Congress, not in the states.

Instead of focusing on outlawing P-to-P software, the entertainment industry should work with P-to-P vendors to distribute their products, added Marty Lafferty [cq] , chief executive of Distributed Computing Industry Association (DCIA), a trade group representing the Kazaa P-to-P software. “They haven’t yet changed from trying to kill the technology to embracing it and trying to harness it,” he said.

Lafferty called the letter an “unfortunate distraction” in the DCIA’s effort to reach compromise with the entertainment industry.

The letter was sent to P2P United, the DCIA, Grokster Ltd., Lime Wire LLC, and Sharman Networks Ltd., the owners of the Kazaa file-sharing software, among other P-to-P vendors.