FTC P2P Workshop Make Little Progress

"As the Federal Trade Commission’s two-day workshop exploring peer-to-peer technology ended Thursday, both sides in the debate expressed a willingness to work together but found little common ground."

"The FTC is collecting preliminary information on P2P technology and software, which detractors claim often mislead consumers by giving them the impression that they can legally download copyright works without permission."

"…At the FTC’s workshop, several P2P advocates urged the FTC or some other government agency to conduct an objective study of whether P2P networks truly harm content industries."

"…(The RIAA’s) Sherman and other content-industry advocates said they want to embrace legitimate P2P services (noting recent industry deals with Snocap and Wurld Media), but P2P providers insisted that they have been largely rebuffed."

"…Content industries point to the refusal by most P2P firms to use filtering technologies that would stop the trading of certain copyright files, although many P2P representatives said such filtering would be unworkable. Content owners said P2P services only oppose filtering because they fear losing user traffic."

"…But others suggested that any filtering efforts by leading P2P software companies would do little to stem piracy because new, non-filtered P2P software would simply crop up to take filtered services’ place."