A week after first asking the Senate Judiciary Committee to turn up the heat on peer-to-peer networks through which adult materials pass, Titan Media is bracing for a potential defamation suit from KaZaA's parent company, over Titan accusations that the P2P giant doesn't try hard enough to stop kids from getting adult materials through its network.
In a new letter to the Judiciary Committee, Titan vice president Keith Ruoff says Sharman Networks threatened the suit "simply because we had the courage to ask for your help in solving this important issue." Ruoff also says in the new letter that a lawsuit threat won't stop Titan from trying to find ways to keep kids from accessing adult materials online.
Ruoff told AVN.com he'd heard almost nothing back from the Judiciary Committee from the current round. "We heard from Senator (Dianne) Feinstein (D-California), she sent a 'Dear Constituent' thank you letter and said they would look at it," Ruoff said. "It seems like every time we release something to the Senate, two or three days later some Senator releases something based on what we send them."
Ruoff was referring to statements from senators just days after Titan's first letter to the Judiciary Committee, in which these senators – whom he didn't name – called for peer-to-peer networks taking stronger filtering measures.
Sharman has not yet made a formal move on suing Titan, Ruoff said. "We got the threat," he said. "We're sitting here waiting for the bomb to explode."
Sharman executive vice president Alan Morris testified to Congress last fall that his company welcomes suggestions for ways to keep kids from unwanted porn exposure. "We will take all other feasible steps," he said, "to best assure that minors are not inadvertently exposed to adult content when using (KaZaA)."
Titan has all but invited Sharman to put its money where its mouth is – they have also sent the Senate committee a point paper suggesting ways KaZaA and other P2P networks could keep kids – and anyone else who doesn't want it – from seeing adult materials through its networks. Titan calls it a "Shun Filter," based on a file's unique hash identification, which remains the same even if the filename is changed.
"Every file that is traded, downloaded, shared, and distributed using KaZaA goes in and out through 'shared folders'," the Titan paper says. "All file-sharing traffic either originates or is destined for these key areas of storage on a user's home computer…Instead of looking for viruses, the 'shun filter' would look for the hash ID of files on the 'shun list.' The KaZaA software would then simply ignore these positively identified files, preventing them from being traded within the network or displayed in content searches performed by users."
Ruoff said P2P defenders who compare the file-swapping scenario to the Sony Betamax videocassette recorder case of 20 years ago miss a big distinction between the VCR and the P2P online swap network.
"Sony sold a Betamax to a user, and that was the end of their association with that user," he said. "The difference is, here, KaZaA gives out a free piece of software, but they don't make money until people use it. They have an ongoing relationship with a user, and that's how they make money. They don't profit until someone uses it for infringing purposes.
"And if we put in a filtering mechanism that was effective and filtered out the content – and we believe adult material should be available legally – but if we found our content, positively identified it, and notified them about it, they need to do something about it," he continued. "And if they continue profiting and we're going to do something about it."
The music industry, of course, continues "doing something about it" – the Recording Industry Association of America has sued 532 computer users it claims were distributing songs online illegally, in the first such suits since a federal appeals court blocked the use of copyright subpoenas to identify the targeted users. And it's the largest number of suits since the RIAA launched its litigation campaign last summer.
The suits were filed in New York and Washington, though the individual defendants are likelier to be living across the U.S., the RIAA said.
The defendants in question are said to have distributed an average of 800 or more songs each online, and face potential civil penalties or settlements that could cost in the thousands. The RIAA said the latest round was aimed at discouraging music fans who thought that appeals court ruling would make it harder to be stopped because of higher cost and effort by the music business.
"Our campaign against illegal file sharers is not missing a beat," said RIAA president Cary Sherman in a statement. "The message to illegal file sharers should be as clear as ever."
