Monday, February 06, 2006

RIAA Admitted in November 2004 testimony that most P2P users aren't even aware that files are able to be shared

While the RIAA has been going around trying to villify P2P end users as "pirates" and "downloaders", we have learned that on November 15, 2004, in testimony before the Federal Trade Commission, the RIAA admitted that most P2P end users whose files are in a "shared files folder" don't even know that their files are in a shared files folder:


"As an initial matter, P2P software may, upon installation, automatically search a user’s entire hard drive for content. Files that users have no intention of sharing may end up being offered to the entire P2P network. Continued sharing of personal information is hard to avoid and is facilitated by confusing and complicated instructions for designating shared items. A study by Nathaniel S. Good and Aaron Krekelberg at HP Laboratories showed that “the majority of the users…were unable to tell what files they were sharing, and sometimes incorrectly assumed they were not sharing any files when in fact they were sharing all files on their hard drive.”


See Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Technology: Consumer Protection and Competition Issues; P2P File-Sharing Workshop – Comment, P034517; Comments of The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), November 15, 2004, pp. 8-9 .

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