P2P file-share group goes ‘official’
http://www.p2pnet.net/article/8210
P2P United, the industry trade group organized by some of the most popular commercial file-sharing software developer companies, today officially launched ‘the banner of P2P United’ and its web page.
Calling for Congress to repeal copyright owners’ “extraordinary authority to bring discriminatory and counterproductive lawsuits against individual file downloaders under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, while bringing all stakeholders to a Congressional negotiating table,” the group also introduced its 10-point Code of Conduct.
INSTALLATION AND CONFIGURATION
# No Member’s software shall be installed or upgraded on any user’s computer without first obtaining the user’s informed consent.
# A method by which a Member’s software (and any other software installed with it) readily may be uninstalled by the user shall be provided to users.
# Member’s software and associated user instructions shall conspicuously require the user to confirm the folder(s) containing the file material that the user wishes to make available to other users before making such material available, and shall be designed to reasonably prevent the inadvertent designation of the content of the user’s entire hard drive (or other principal data repository) as material available to other users.
COMPLIANCE WITH APPLICABLE LAW
# The user of a member’s software shall be prominently informed that the use of the software for illegal activities, including particularly infringement of intellectual property laws, is strictly forbidden and may subject the user to civil and/or criminal penalties.
# Appropriate online links to one or more responsible sources of information regarding the nature and scope of applicable copyright law shall be prominently provided to users.
# Members will comply with the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, and shall cooperate with governmental agencies to eliminate and prosecute trafficking in child pornography and other similar crimes.
USER PRIVACY, SECURITY AND CONFIDENTIALITY
# Members shall establish and prominently post on their websites user privacy principles.
# Members shall make readily available to users of their software information regarding the potential risk of inadvertent exposure to children of inappropriate file content.
# Members shall, as technically feasible, incorporate features into their software that enable adults to restrict use of the software to designated members of their households.
# Members shall not, without a user’s informed and confirmed consent, disclose personal information about the user or the user’s online activities to third parties unless required by law to do so.
“It’s long past time for the ‘Tyrannosaurical’ recording industry to stop blaming – and suing – its customers to cover up the industry’s own glaring failure to adapt yet again to a new technology – one that should already have been making millions for it and for the average artist whom it still hypocritically claims to speak for,” said the group’s executive director, Adam Eisgrau, during a telephone conferenced press announcement.
“Discriminatory lawsuits that run roughshod over the public’s rights to due process have got to stop and everyone with a stake in the future of electronic commerce needs to sit down under Congress’ watchful eye and get serious about building the 21st century’s online marketplace. If the industry can’t or won’t stop crashing blindly through the forest snapping up cowering mammals, then Congress should shut ‘Jurassic Park’ down.”
At the conference were: Pablo Soto, ceo, Blubster; Wayne Rosso, president, Grokster; Greg Bildson, chief operating and technology officer, Lime Wire; and Michael Weiss, ceo, Morpheus.
Charter P2P United members are: Free Peers; Grokster; Lime Wire; MetaMachine; Piolet Networks; and StreamCast Networks.
