Online file-sharing networks, used by millions of consumers to trade digital music, videos, games and software, are beginning to work with law enforcement to crack down on child-pornography purveyors who use their systems.
Officials of two trade associations representing several companies doing such "peer-to-peer" -- or P2P -- file sharing said yesterday that they are cooperating with the FBI (news - web sites) to attack the problem, which has drawn the ire of several members of Congress.
One group, P2P United, hopes to develop a system similar to the once-common placement of missing children's pictures on milk cartons. P2P United's members, including Grokster, Morpheus, Blubster and BearShare, would showcase photographs of individuals wanted for child pornography on their home and installation pages, said Adam M. Eisgrau, the organization's executive director.
The largest file-sharing network, Kazaa, has been cooperating with the FBI for months to help track down known child-porn traffickers on its system, said Marty Lafferty, chief executive of the Distributed Computing Industry Association.
FBI officials did not return calls for comment last night.
The moves represent a turnabout for an industry that argued for some time that it merely provided a vehicle by which individuals share digital material, and that it could not monitor or help police their behavior.
On Tuesday, five U.S. senators sent a letter to the Federal Trade Commission urging the agency to investigate P2P networks, and a congressional hearing on Internet pornography is scheduled for today.
Under the P2P United plan, pictures would be drawn from data the FBI already provide to the television show "America's Most Wanted." The photos would contain links to help users then contact the FBI with tips or leads about the suspect.
Final details with the FBI have not yet been resolved, Eisgrau said, but he hopes to have the program up and running in 60 to 90 days.
In circumstances of "a serious criminal abuse" of Kazaa's technology, the company will "pull out all the stops" to help locate the suspect, Lafferty said. In addition to helping with enforcement, Kazaa is working on technology that will enable users to flag pornographic files, which are sometimes disguised with innocent keywords, Lafferty said.
Lafferty said his members' efforts are designed to send a message that "P2P is the dumbest place you could ever want to put up criminally obscene content. It's like standing up in the town square and shouting, 'I've done something illegal.' "
The use of file sharing for pornography, and especially child pornography, has been a potent political weapon for the movie and recording industries, which have sought to shut down the services because they also enable the exchange of copyrighted works for free.
Kazaa alone boasts that nearly 2 million files were downloaded in one recent week. The music industry, in particular, has blamed file sharing for sagging sales and losses of millions of dollars a year.
But the industry lost a key challenge in a California federal court, which ruled that just because some consumers used file sharing for illegally distributing digital media and software, the programs themselves were not illegal.
File-sharing programs can unwittingly turn children and adults into illegal distribution vehicles for pirated entertainment and pornography, Sens. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah), Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) wrote to the FTC.
Eisgrau said child pornography is an Internet problem, not just a P2P problem.
"We are happy to do more than our fair share," he said. "But to call this a P2P-induced problem is dishonest."
Source
