RIAA Parses 'P2P' As 'Peer 2 Porn'

watchful.babbler writes "Having largely failed to galvanize public and political action against P2P systems, the RIAA has mounted a campaign to link P2P systems with child pornography (NYT, reg. required). The result is H. R. 2885 (available via Thomas), which has the remarkably clear and honest intent 'To prohibit the distribution of peer-to-peer file trading software in interstate commerce.' Amongst other things, the proposed law will require the creation of 'do-not-install beacon products' (do-not-ask, you really don't want to know), force P2P apps to include warning labels that users may be exposed to pornography, and require P2P developers and distributors to obtain and store users' personal information -- ostensibly for age verification, but one can think of other reasons that the RIAA might be interested in that info. Worse yet, even given the 'operation exemption' (Sec. (4)(b)(1)(C) in the bill), applications such as AIM and iChat appear to fall under these provisions."

Comments

Google link, no reg

[adamjaskie]

Here is the google news link, no NYT registration required. Aiming at Pornography to Hit Music Piracy

Re:Google link, no reg

[jrockway]

Or you can log on to nytimes.com with the username noreg and password noreg. It's nice :)

How do they define P2P?

[spektr]

The bill defines P2P as ...software that enables the transmission of computer files or data over the Internet or any other public network of computers and that has as its primary function the capability to do all of the following--

(A) enable a computer on which such software is used to transmit files or data to another such computer;

(B) enable the user of one such computer to request the transmission of files or data from another such computer; and

(C) enable the user of one such computer to designate files or data available for transmission to another such computer, but which definition excludes, to the extent otherwise included, software products legitimately marketed and distributed primarily for the operation of business and home networks, the networks of Internet access providers, or the Internet itself

So...

1. It is illegal to transfer files between two FTP-servers or HTTP-servers.

2. But if you use it for business, you are allowed to operate software like gnutella or kazaa.

And working links to the legislation on Thomas...

[tugrul]

H.R.2885

Check the cosponsor list, your congressperson might be one!

For more info: Bill Summary & Status

Re:No group has done more to sexualize children...

[robkill]

No group has done more to sexualize children for profit than the music industry. Go to amazon and pull up a photo of britney spears' first album -- she's wearing a school girl uniform. They have a lot of nerve talking about this now.

Not to mention the early videos were shot by porn director Greg Dark. He has also shot videos for Mandy Moore and was profiled in Esquire. The hypocracy runs deeper than you think.