The music industry is hoping that the availability of child pornography on peer-to-peer networks such as Kazaa will help put file sharing out of business. Record executives have been frustrated that Congress hasn’t acted to curb piracy on these services, but some are now optimistic that lawmakers will intervene. “This is like Al Capone and taxes, which is how the government got him,” says Jimmy Iovine, chairman of Interscope Records.
“This shows peer-to-peers for what they really are.” At a September 9th Senate hearing on the connection between porn and peer-to-peer, Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, warned about the “great risk of inadvertent exposure to these materials by young P2P users.” Two congressmen have introduced a bill to mandate parental consent before children can access such networks. A government report last March found that more than half the searches for files named “Britney Spears,” “Pokemon” and “Olsen twins” retrieved pornography, including eight percent that contained images of children.
