The Informed P2P User Act

The Progress & Freedom Foundation U.S. Congressional Testimony

12 Pages Posted: 28 May 2009 Last revised: 20 Aug 2009

Date Written: May 5, 2009

Abstract

(Testimony of Thomas Sydnor before the U.S. House Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection, Committee on Energy and Commerce)

Although voluntary self-regulation should always be an option of first resort, the narrowly-tailored Informed P2P User Act would successfully supplement existing law. Popular programs continue to contain features that perpetuate inadvertent file-sharing, illustrating a failure of the voluntary best practices adopted by distributors of peer-to-peer software.

Congress should not rely on continued self-regulation by distributors file-sharing programs because certain companies have repeatedly proven themselves to be untrustworthy -- specifically, the deployment of a "search wizard" upon a new installation of the LimeWire file-sharing program, which recommends users share all or almost all files in their "My Documents" folders and subfolders.

Since first time users of file-sharing programs tend to be teens or preteens, the addition of this feature is deliberate and an intent to deploy a known means of directing absurdly dangerous guidance towards a program's most vulnerable users in order to cause them to share files inadvertently. Since the "search wizard" function was deployed after a Code of Conduct was agreed upon by distributors of file-sharing software, the actions of LimeWire has illustrated self-regulation will not work in this instance.

The Informed P2P User Act complements existing law without needlessly burdening legitimate, law-abiding uses" of such technology, because it narrowly and rather gently targets critical root causes of inadvertent sharing.

Keywords: Informed P2P User Act,Data Accountability and Protection Act,inadvertent file-sharing,file-sharing,peer-to-peer,H.R. 1319,LimeWire,Voluntary Best Practices,Distributed Computing Industry Association,VBPs,KaZaA,copyright,file share,file sharing,online privacy,intellectual property,file distribution

JEL Classification: D18, L86, L82, O34, O38

Suggested Citation

Sydnor, Thomas D., The Informed P2P User Act (May 5, 2009). The Progress & Freedom Foundation U.S. Congressional Testimony, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1410808 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.1410808

Thomas D. Sydnor (Contact Author)

affiliation not provided to SSRN ( email )

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