Statement of Rep. Howard L. Berman – Introduction of the Peer to Peer Piracy Prevention Act
July 25, 2002
Mr. Chairman: I rise today to introduce legislation that will help stop peer-to-peer piracy.
The growth of peer-to-peer (P2P) networks has been staggering, even by Internet standards. From non-existence a few years ago, today nearly a dozen P2P networks have been deployed, a half-dozen have gained widespread acceptance, and one P2P network alone is responsible for 1.8 billion downloads each month. The steady growth in broadband access, which exponentially increases the speed, breadth, and usage of these P2P networks, indicates that P2P penetration and related downloading will continue to increase at a breakneck pace.
Unfortunately, the primary current application of P2P networks is unbridled copyright piracy. P2P downloads today consist largely of copyrighted music, and as download speeds improve, there has been a marked increase in P2P downloads of copyrighted software, games, photographs, karaoke tapes, and movies. Books, graphic designs, newspaper articles, needlepoint designs, and architectural drawings cannot be far behind. The owners and creators of these copyrighted works have not authorized their distribution through these P2P networks, and P2P distribution of this scale does not fit into any conception of fair use. Thus, there is no question that the vast majority of P2P downloads constitute copyright infringements for which the works’ creators and owners receive no compensation.
The massive scale of P2P piracy and its growing breadth represents a direct threat to the livelihoods of U.S. copyright creators, including songwriters, recording artists, musicians, directors, photographers, graphic artists, journalists, novelists, and software programmers. It also threatens the survival of the industries in which these creators work, and the seamstresses, actors, Foley artists, carpenters, cameramen, administrative assistants, and sound engineers these industries employ. As these creators and their industries contribute greatly both to the cultural and economic vitality of the U.S., their livelihoods and survival must be protected.
Simply put, P2P piracy must be cleaned up. The question is how.
The answer appears to be a holistic approach involving a variety of components, none of which constitutes a silver bullet. Wider deployment of online services offering copyrighted works in legal, consumer-friendly ways, digital rights management technologies, lawsuits against infringers, prosecutions of egregious infringers, and technological self-help measures are all part of the solution to P2P piracy.
While pursuit of many of these components to the P2P piracy solution requires no new legislation, I believe legislation is necessary to promote the usefulness of at least one such component. Specifically, enactment of the legislation I introduce today is necessary to enable responsible usage of technological self-help measures to stop copyright infringements on P2P networks.
Technology companies, copyright owners, and Congress are all working to develop security standards, loosely termed digital rights management (DRM) solutions, to protect copyrighted works from unauthorized reproduction, performance, and distribution. While the development and deployment of DRM solutions should be encouraged, they do not represent a complete solution to piracy. DRM solutions will not address the copyrighted works already “in the clear” on P2P networks. Additionally, DRM solutions will never be foolproof, and as each new generation of DRM solutions is cracked, the newly-unprotected copyrighted works will leak onto P2P networks. Similarly, copyrighted works cannot always be protected by DRM solutions, as they may be stolen prior to protection or when performed in the clear – for instance, when a movie is copied from the projection booth.
Shutting down all P2P systems is not a viable or desirable option for dealing with the massive copyright infringement they facilitate. While the 9th Circuit could shut Napster down because it utilized a central directory and centralized servers, the new P2P networks have increasingly engineered around that decision by incorporating varying levels of decentralization. It may be that truly decentralized P2P systems cannot be shut down, either by a court or technologically, unless the client P2P software is removed from each and every file trader’s computer.
As important, P2P represents an efficient method of information transfer and supports a variety of legitimate business models. Removal of all P2P networks would stifle innovation. P2P networks must be cleaned up, not cleared out.
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