They still don't get it
Aiming at Pornography to Hit Music Piracy
By SAUL HANSELL
The recording industry, struggling to curb music piracy, is shining the spotlight on another demon lurking on the Internet: pornography.
The industry is trying to enlist broader public support with a campaign intended to show that its nemesis — the peer-to-peer networks for swapping files like KaZaA and Morpheus — are used not only to trade songs but also pornographic images, including child pornography.
"As a guy in the record industry and as a parent, I am shocked that these services are being used to lure children to stuff that is really ugly," said Andrew Lack, the chief executive of Sony Music Entertainment.
Others ask whether raising this issue is more than a little cynical from an industry that heavily promotes music with sexual and violent themes.
"The entertainment companies have engaged in a deliberate and despicable campaign of lies to smear peer-to-peer technology for political purposes," said Philip S. Corwin, a lobbyist for Sharman Networks, the publisher of KaZaA, the largest file-sharing service. "They are trying to associate us unfairly with the most vile element in society, child pornography."
Pornography has been actively traded through file-sharing services from their start. But the record labels have recently started lending lobbying and logistical support to antipornography and child protection groups that are raising the issue. For example, Dan Klores Communications, which represents Sony Music and other music clients, has been promoting Parents for Megan's Law, a Long Island group involved with preventing child abuse that has been critical of child pornography available through file-sharing services, like KaZaA.
Their efforts are having some result. A bill has been introduced into the House, with the endorsement of the recording industry, that would require children to get parental consent before using sharing software. And on Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing to look into the connection between file-swapping services and pornography, called by its chairman, Senator Orrin Hatch, a Republican of Utah.
The labels, which blame online piracy for declining music sales, are fighting the downloading services on many fronts. They are trying to make paying for music more attractive through legal downloading services, and in the case of Universal Music Group, the world's largest record company, slashing the price of most its CD's by 30 percent.
They are also trying to turn up the heat on those who continue to download songs without paying for them. This week the Recording Industry Association of America said it was going to start filing hundreds of lawsuits against individuals accused of swapping large numbers of copyrighted songs. The association also is planning to offer an amnesty program that would exempt from prosecution people who destroy all their illegally downloaded songs.
But in perhaps the most extreme sign of the industry's desperation, it is trying to focus the attention of lawmakers and others on how the peer-to-peer, or p2p, services can connect users with a range of ills including computer viruses, software that steals personal information and unwanted pornography.
"P2p stands for piracy to pornography," quipped Mr. Lack.
The file-sharing companies respond that the risk of children seeing pornography inadvertently on their systems is being overstated and that their software is no different from Web browsers and e-mail programs that can be used to find all sorts of material.
Mitch Glazier, the senior vice president for government affairs for the R.I.A.A., says the industry's current calls for parental controls on file-swapping services is not inconsistent with its longstanding defense of the artistic freedom of songwriters.
"We are not trying to stop people from expressing themselves," he said. "We say you should do what we do and give notice and disclosure" as in the labels warning of explicit lyrics on compact disc packages.
The antipornography campaign also puts the music labels in league with the legal pornography industry, which faces some of the same problems from piracy. Titan Media, a San Francisco producer of erotic gay videos, has seen a sharp drop in sales it attributes to file sharing.
"Every movie is traded 10 times the amount it is sold," said Gill Sperlein, Titan's general counsel. Another problem from the file sharing, he said, is that material is available to any user, regardless of age.
"We spend a lot of money and effort trying to make sure our material only gets into the hands of adults," he said.
The bill in the House backed by the music industry — introduced by Representative Joseph R. Pitts, a Republican from Pennsylvania, and Representative Christopher John, a Democrat from Louisiana — would require the file-swapping services to get parental consent before being used by children.
Such a law would face both technological and legal challenges. It envisions a system of "beacons" that parents could place on their computers to prevent the installation of file-sharing software, technology that does not currently exist. Moreover, several of the major file-sharing services are based outside of the United States, making enforcement difficult.
There is no argument that file-sharing services can be used to download pornographic images and videos — both legal and illegal.
A study in March by the General Accounting Office found that KaZaA would be effective for someone looking for child pornography. The agency searched for 12 terms associated with child pornography, such as "incest" and "underage." It did not actually download the files it found, but it determined that 42 percent of them had titles or descriptions associated with pornographic images of children.
A second aspect of its study measured the likelihood a child would inadvertently be exposed to pornography using KaZaA. It examined 157 files downloaded in response to three search terms of interest to children — Britney, Pokémon and Olsen twins. It classified 49 percent of those files as pornographic.
"Our artists' names are being used to lure kids and defraud them into finding pornography," said Mr. Glazier of the R.I.A.A.
The GAO study vastly overstates the likelihood that children searching for popular music will in fact find pornography, according to studies by Public Knowledge, an advocacy group on intellectual property issues.
"We find you don't really accidentally download porn," said Mike Godwin, the group's senior technology counsel.
The file-sharing services say that they are being unfairly singled out and that they are no more a conduit for pornography than e-mail programs, chat rooms, search engines and the Internet itself.
"This has nothing to do with concern about adult material and everything to do with commercial issues," said Alan Morris, executive vice president of Sharman Networks. He said that KaZaA introduced a parental control feature last year that can be used to block searches for pornographic material.
Laura A. Ahearn, the director of Parents for Megan's Law, argues that the file-sharing services are different because their main use is for trading music, an activity that disproportionately appeals to teenagers and young adults.
"KaZaA is just like Joe Camel," she said referring to the cartoon logo that had been used by R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Holdings to promote its Camel cigarette brand. "KaZaA has done an incredible job of attracting young people to their site, and as a result they have been really able to attack children."
The available evidence does not show that pornography on file-sharing systems is growing any faster than through other online vehicles. Indeed, the federally financed child pornography tip line run by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children found that 1.3 percent of the reports of Internet child pornography were related to file-sharing services so far this year, down from 2.1 percent last year. Nearly three-quarters of child pornography reported is on Web sites. The Web sites typically charge fees for access while the file-sharing services are free.
Mr. Morris of Sharman Networks, which is incorporated in the South Pacific island nation of Vanuatu and managed from Australia, said that most of the pornographic material on file-sharing services was not illegal child pornography but legal material intended for adults. Sharman Networks's affiliate in the United States, Altnet, which tries to profit by selling content through KaZaA, does offer some pornographic material for sale.
"While it may not be what you and I choose to do, adult individuals may share material between themselves the same way adults can watch it on cable television or buy it at airports," Mr. Morris said.
Other distributors of pornography have also embraced the file-sharing networks as a promotional vehicle. They distribute sample pictures and videos in an attempt to attract paying customers to their Web sites.
"The adult industry, like others, is against the illegal downloading of their videos," said Gary Kremen, the chief executive of Sex.com, a directory of sexually explicit Web sites, "but they are much smarter than the music industry. They see p2p as money to be made."
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