Protecting Intellectual Property

The Council opposes legislation that would create a safe harbor from liability for copyright holders that use technological self-help measures, including denial of services attacks, to interdict unauthorized copies of their material exchanged on peer-to-peer networks.

Self-help measures would likely disable general-purpose peer-to-peer networks, preventing or severely hindering legitimate uses of them, and would almost certainly impede the service of innocent users unknowingly sharing communication networks and infrastructure. 

Copyright holders should be encouraged to target those liable for copyright infringement by using the procedures and remedies created by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. The Council supports the ongoing discussions among content providers, technology companies, and network providers regarding development of voluntary Digital Rights Management (DRM) standards, to produce consensus regarding implementation of DRM technologies designed to protect unauthorized access to content.