Senators turned a critical eye to file-trading networks Tuesday in a hearing the explored the use of peer-to-peer services for the exchange of illegal pornography.
While no new legislation was introduced, the hearing, convened by the Senate Judiciary Committee, focused on increasing criminal exploitation of file-sharing technologies to distribute child-porn images.
Several witnesses, representing law enforcement and child-protection agencies, blamed peer-to-peer networks for contributing to the spread of illegal pornographic images by allowing users to cloak their identities.
"The images of child pornography on peer-to-peer networks are some of the worst seen by law enforcement today," said Thomas Spota, Suffolk County, New York's district attorney who recently arrested 12 local residents for illegally swapping child pornography through their computers. Spota asked Congress "to make peer-to-peer networks and their operators responsible for child porn on their networks."
Committee members, including chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), were receptive to such pleas.
Hatch, well-known as an outspoken critic of peer-to-peer trading of copyright music, warned that if file-swapping networks do not rein in illicit porn trafficking, lawmakers "might have to do something detrimental."
At one point, Hatch asked law enforcement witnesses on the panel: "Do you suggest we put out of business the networks that allow this to occur?"
Others had more moderate proposals. Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said he would prefer "a private-sector solution" to the porn problem, with cooperation from peer-to-peer networks.
Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) advocated finding a way to prohibit, perhaps on the basis of copyright law, the use of terms like "Pokemon" or "Harry Potter" in names of files containing pornographic images.
Currently, several witnesses said, children often are exposed inadvertently to pornographic images because of deceptive labeling. Witnesses also cited a spring study by the U.S. General Accounting Office that found that child pornography is readily accessible over peer-to-peer networks.
Shock factor aside, however, some observers believed the Senate's interest in fighting illegal porn file-swapping is largely fueled by lobbying from the recording industry.
Wendy Seltzer, an attorney with the Electronic Frontier Foundation, said the Senate was using the ever-popular political cause of cracking down on child porn as a pretext to target peer-to-peer networks. There are plenty of other technologies that pornographers employ that lawmakers leave alone.
"We don't have hearings calling the photo industry to task when their film is used to create child porn," Seltzer said. Like photo companies, decentralized peer-to-peer networks can't control what individuals do with their products.
Seltzer's logic was echoed by the only representative of peer-to-peer service present at Tuesday's hearing, Alan Morris, vice president of Sharman Networks, operator of the file-swapping site Kazaa. Morris maintained that Kazaa is not technically able to monitor its members' trading activities.
Nonetheless, Morris said the company will cooperate with law enforcement in investigations related to child porn and will do everything it can to reduce illegal porn exchanges through its service.
Lawmakers said they intend to use information gleaned from the hearing to help gauge the need for new regulations to restrict file-trading activities or to increase liability of network operators to help eradicate downloading of illegal porn.
In a related matter, senators said they also intend to review provisions of the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which allows copyright owners to subpoena records from Internet service providers in cases of suspected infringement. ISPs have criticized a provision that forces disclosure of personal information based on flimsy evidence of wrongdoing.
The call for fresh public and industry input regarding the DMCA comes a day after the Recording Industry Association of America launched its largest legal offensive to date against online copyright infringement. The recording industry filed suit against 261 individuals accused of illegally swapping copyrighted music online.
