September 8, 2003
Volume 1, Issue 9
Register Now for 10/8 DCIA General Meeting
DCIA is sponsoring its Quarterly General Meeting for Members and prospective Members on Wednesday October 8th in Washington, DC. The agenda will focus on developing viable solutions to P2P piracy. Learn from leaders of industry sectors and examine alternative proposals. Ensure that your voice is heard in this important discussion. A special room rate is available at the Arlington Hilton, above the Ballston Metro stop convenient to Reagan National Airport and the District, and one block from DCIA’s headquarters in Washington, DC.
Please call 888-864-DCIA for more information or register now online at www.dcia.info.
Report from CEO Marty Lafferty
 As you may be aware, opponents of peer-to-peer file sharing are mounting a campaign wrongfully seeking to equate P2P with child pornography.
The goals of these detractors are to confuse the issues, associate a new technology with a loathsome activity because they have not been able to control that technology, and generally cause problems for the distributed computing industry.
They especially seek to alienate our most influential constituencies, including the federal government, in an effort to impede the growth of this new medium.
The truth will ultimately prevail: such undesirable content represents an insignificant amount of file-sharing traffic and peer-to-peer networks are not a viable channel for those attempting to disseminate illicit content. In fact, recent government reports indicate that P2P distribution accounts for only two per cent (2%) of child pornography on the Internet. The National Council for Missing and Exploited Children reports that it is an even smaller and declining portion.
However, the DCIA does not want to sit idly by and be victimized by a big-lie campaign. And more importantly, we should do all we can to eliminate criminally obscene content, even absent the motivation of smear tactics.
No amount of child pornography can be considered acceptable, and we should do all we can to ensure that peer-to-peer networks are among the most secure and attractive areas of the Internet.
Accordingly, we are initiating an industry dialogue on the topic of how participating companies can help users of peer-to-peer networks address encounters with criminally obscene content that, while rare, can be very upsetting. Thereby we hope to make file sharing an even safer and higher quality experience for consumers.
We will open up discussion to user assistance programs such as “how-to-recognize-report-and-remove” criminally obscene files.
We will invite exploration of a clearinghouse or establishment of a hotline to help consumers who encounter this or other types of undesirable content.
We will suggest consideration of an industry task force with law enforcement agencies to explore cooperative efforts to help users improve the ways that they can help themselves and assist policing activities.
We will also encourage a candid assessment of the status and efficacy of parental filters and other current industry practices with respect to the related subject of adult content.
If you would like to participate, or have suggestions for how DCIA should proceed in this matter, please contact me directly at 888-864-3242 or marty@dcia.info.
Thanks very much.
Additions to September DCIA Events
Alan Morris, Executive Vice President of DCIA Charter Member Sharman Networks has been invited to provide testimony at the Senate Judiciary Hearing on “Pornography, Technology and Process: Problems and Solutions on Peer-to-Peer Networks” on September 9th.
DCIA is sponsoring a day-long demonstration of the state-of-the-art of file sharing via peer-to-peer networks for Congressional legislators and their staffs on Wednesday September 17th at the Library of Congress (Jefferson Building, Room 162).
DCIA is participating in Gartner Group 2 and Harvard Berkman Center on Internet & Society’s day-long seminar on “Digital Media in Cyberspace” on September 18th in Boston, MA.
DCIA Webmaster Adam Marcus will be a presenter at the 31st Telecommunication Policy Research Conference to be held September 19-21 at the National Center for Technology & Law, George Mason University School of Law. His presentation will be based on his master's thesis, the title of which is "The Celestial Jukebox Revisited: Best Practices And Copyright Law Revisions For Subscription-Based Online Music Services." Adam will be presenting at a panel entitled "Copyright and Communications" moderated by Gigi Sohn, president and co-founder of Public Knowledge.
DCIA is participating in Digital Media Wire’s day-long conference and workshop entitled “The Future of Entertainment Forum” on September 22nd in Atlanta, GA.
For more information about participating in any of these events, please contact us at info@dcia.info.
Publications quote file sharing statistics and other industry metrics from numerous syndicated research sources (Nielsen NetRating, Jupiter, Forrester, etc.). DCIA would like to know which of the services your organization subscribes to for the P2P climate. Please let us know by responding to rick@dcia.info. All responses will kept confidential.
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