USACM Policy Brief

Congress is considering a variety of measures to grant copyright owners the legal right to disrupt the unauthorized use of their copyrighted works on peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. Under certain circumstances, permitted actions might include intentionally damaging computers used to download copyright protected music and other files from P2P networks.

USACM Concerns

As members of a professional association that promotes both technical and ethical excellence in computing, USACM is concerned that allowing copyright owners to intentionally damage computers would legitimize a variety of questionable acts and produce unintended consequences harmful to the use and continued development of the Internet.

While recognizing that P2P networking raises new legal challenges, USACM is engaged to educate policymakers concerning the variety of legitimate uses of P2P networking protocols that do not involve copyright infringement. Research and development conducted using P2P shows great promise for inexpensive yet powerful distributed computation. P2P networks are helping businesses, researchers, and artists work collaboratively and more efficiently in many environments. P2P use on a corporate, educational, or government computing device that results in retaliatory action could result in serious harm to innocent third parties (the owners or other users of these machines and the people who rely on the applications normally performed by these machines). Applications that could be impacted include electronic commerce transactions and a variety of research, education, free speech, health care, and other noncommercial activities.

The scientists, educators, artists, publishers, and other computing professionals of USACM have major interests in copyright. We are concerned about the protection of our property, but we are addressing this challenge through the investigation of new business models and methods better suited to a "wired" world. Legislative and regulatory efforts that permit vigilante attacks on P2P networks to protect content are not the answer, but only serve as an invitation for additional problems at the expense of society at-large.

USACM Activities