US movie industry working on law proposals against P2P software

March 17, 2004

The German publisher Heise reports about plans to
create a law that forces publishers of P2P software to warn their users because
they might cause damage to themselves and to others. Furthermore
they should be made responsible for the damages caused.

Currently the initiative is only available as a draft but the American magazine "Wired" has the Word document. From the version history saved in this document, it is obvious that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) is involved ind this proposal. One of the authors has the shortcut "stevensonv." the article claims. Wired assumes that these changes belong to Vans Stevenson, who is responsible for legal matters at the MPAA.

P2P software is known for spreading pornography,
illegal copies of movie, music and software states an article in this
draft. Furthermore the software is used for spreading virusses and worms.
The more this kind of software is used, the higher the risks will
grow.

It's very sad to see how much power the music industry already has. This time
the law proposal only requires to send out warnings, but what if next time they
are able to ban P2P software at all?

Fortunately the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) defends P2P software by
stating that even the Internet Explorer can be used illegaly for example to view
child pornography. According to the proposal Microsoft had to be made
responsible for this.

Feel free to discuss this topic in our Music Downloads, P2P & Legal Issues
Forum.

Source: Heise.de