Senator Plans P2P Summit

Happy New Year everyone. Time to awaken from our sleepy holiday slumber and
influence events and the shape of things to come.

Senator Coleman says, "we need the technology experts, the computer
industry, the peer-to-peer industry, the software industry, the
entertainment industry, the privacy experts and the business experts to come
together and discuss positive and meaningful solutions to this challenge
facing a major segment of our economy."

Who would you want to attend this event?

JP

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Senator Plans P2P Summit

http://www.internetnews.com/bus-news/article.php/3299511

January 14, 2004
Senator Plans P2P Summit
By Roy Mark


U.S. Sen. Norm Coleman plans to convene a peer-to-peer (P2P) summit within
the next two months in hopes of avoiding a federally mandated response to
online piracy. The Minnesota Republican said the answers to protecting
copyrighted material are more likely to be found through technological
innovation rather than passage of more laws.

After holding several P2P hearings last year, Congress is dealing with
multiple pieces of proposed legislation concerning the distribution, use and
design of P2P networking software. Most of the proposed laws are intended to
stop and/or penalize file sharing of copyrighted material, particularly
music and movies.

Other bills are aimed at protecting minors who use P2P software to
inadvertently download pornographic material, especially child pornography.
The bill would, in effect, limit the availability of P2P software in the
process.

Tom Steward, Coleman's communications director, told internetnews.com,
"solutions are being developed in the private sector but not all the parties
are talking with other. We want to get everyone in the same room."

Steward said Internet service providers (ISP), hardware and software
executives, P2P companies, entertainment industry leaders, technology
experts, privacy advocates, academics and entrepreneurs will be invited to
the Washington roundtable to discuss the issue.

"In 1998, Congress passed legislation that was intended to protect the
entertainment industry and copyrights," Coleman said last Friday at the
Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. "Yet, within less than five
years, the legislation was bypassed by technology. With the advent of
technology such as peer-to-peer networking, law, technology and ethics are
now not in synch. We need to find other ways to solve the problems rather
than issuing lawsuits and lobbying Congress to pass tougher laws."

Coleman is a leading critic of the Recording Industry Association of
America's (RIAA) legal tactics in suing individual file swappers. In August,
Coleman sent a letter to the RIAA expressing concern the music industry was
in danger of abusing its broad-based subpoena authority to determine the
extent of illegal file sharing in the U.S.

By October, Coleman chaired a hearing on the impact P2P technology has on
the music industry. Coleman said the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)
fines are unreasonable and force accused infringers into settling lawsuits
when they might otherwise consider contesting the allegations.

A federal appeals court in December rejected the RIAA's use of the
controversial subpoenas, but that decision prompted several in Congress to
call for amending the DMCA to restore the RIAA's power to go after
downloaders.

"I believe we need the technology experts, the computer industry, the
peer-to-peer industry, the software industry, the entertainment industry,
the privacy experts and the business experts to come together and discuss
positive and meaningful solutions to this challenge facing a major segment
of our economy," said Coleman.

Coleman added that he was not "interested in assigning blame, or pointing
fingers. I want to bring together the great minds that have a role to play
in this matter and develop constructive measures that can address these
challenges, and determine an appropriate role for Congress to play in
helping to find some common ground."

The senator stressed the answers "are not going to come solely from
government."