WASHINGTON -- Anyone who thought the Supreme Court's Grokster decision would get Congress off the peer-to-peer industry's back might want to think again.
In June, the court held that P2P companies can be held liable for copyright infringement of their users under certain circumstances, but key U.S. Senators suggested Thursday that the decision might not have gone far enough.
At a hearing of the Senate Commerce Committee, lawmakers warned P2P industry leaders to do more about piracy on their networks or face potential legislation that could restrict P2P usage.
At issue is whether to let the marketplace breathe in the aftermath of the Grokster decision or to codify the high court's reasoning into law.
"I do hope we're being heard because there are people in the Senate who want us to move now," said committee chairman Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska). "We're holding a hearing to see what's going on in these industries and to see what might be done to terminate this illegal activity."
Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-California), whose constituency ranges from Hollywood to Silicon Valley, said, "I want everybody to come out of this in good shape, but there's a right and wrong here."
She skewered the P2P industry for failing to keep pornography from finding its way to children who enter innocent search terms into P2P software and "get something horrific" instead. "If you don't do more to protect our children, it's not going to sit well," she said.
Adam Eisgrau, executive director of P2P United, said his member companies all oppose children accessing porn but that filtering systems would be ineffective. After Boxer pointed out that several industry-authorized P2P networks are applying filters, Eisgrau countered that those are "closed" systems.
"There would be very serious social, scientific, educational and all kinds of ramifications if in fact Congress were to require or to suggest that only so-called closed peer-to-peer operating systems were now lawful," he said.
Eisgrau urged Congress to convene a P2P summit in which experts from all sides could find solutions, including a "voluntary collective licensing" arrangement similar to the one set up to collect royalties for radio play.
Entertainment interests balked at the idea.
"There is no need to bring the parties together in the wake of this decision," said Fritz Attaway, executive vice president of the Motion Picture Association of America. "The legitimate content distributors and content creators are talking.... What was needed was to get the free riders out of the way."
Mitch Bainwol, chairman and CEO of the Recording Industry Association of America, said the music industry is unlikely to make nice with companies deemed to have enabled piracy in the past.
"They take our property and then say they want to be licensed," he said. "There are legitimate players out in the marketplace. They are doing fine with licenses."
Stevens closed the hearing by threatening to introduce bipartisan legislation if P2P companies don't do something to stop piracy on their networks.
"If you don't do it, I'm going to move over and meet with Sen. Boxer on this," he said. "We've got to find some way to meet this concept of protecting our intellectual property. We can hardly accuse the people abroad of stealing our intellectual property if we can't protect it at home."
