P2P United

[eclectica]

P2P United (http://www.p2punited.org/) is a lobbying group with mainly legislative concerns (http://www.p2punited.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=index&catid=&topic=4&allstories=1) headed by Adam Eisgrau, comprised of the following six members: BearShare (http://www.bearshare.com/), Blubster (http://www.blubster.com/), eDonkey (http://www.edonkey2000.com/), Grokster (http://www.grokster.com/), Limewire ( http://www.limewire.com/), and Morpheus (http://www.morpheus.com/).

They first achieved public attention when they payed the legal settlement with the RIAA, of the 12-year old Brianna Lahara (http://news.com.com/2100-1027-5074227.html)'s mother. When I first heard about them paying the suit I thought that they were providing some public relations damage control to the RIAA. Actually what they did, was use the high publicity of the 12 year old mother's being sued, to promote themselves and enter the public arena.

Here is a Slyck interview with Adam Eisgrau (http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=2134).

I don't think P2P United actually hired out Adam Eisgrau from their own ranks or the ranks of peer-to-peer, but they instead used Flanagan Consulting (http://www.flanagan-consulting.com/) to hire him out. He's the one whose job it is to say the right things to the right people.

[eclectica]

P2P United supports compulsory licensing as a solution for the record companies to continue reaping their large sums of money. For p2p users or ISPs, a tax or surcharge would be levied and then the money would be distributed to the record companies based on the popularity of the song, which would be determined by surveys.

P2P United is not opposed to the record companies, because their plan involves continuation of the mafia and extortion fees, to be collected by an official agency.

Let us not forget what p2p is all about. It is about a network of music lovers and friends who openly share the things they love with others. Putting a tax on that and levying fees on the process goes against what it is all about.

[nicobie]

fuc'in holloween colors are draggin' me down.

[eclectica]

Today P2P United announced a plan that would involve cooperation with the FBI and would display pictures of wanted child pornographers on the websites of its members. What bothers me about their plan is that they are creating a link between p2p filesharing and child pornographer which doesn't inherently exist. Their attempts to give p2p filesharing a responsible image are in fact creating more trouble by linking the two issues together. Their actions suggests the existence of some kind of guilt on the part of the p2p filesharing community.

I believe that when they paid the legal fees of the 12 year old girl sued by the RIAA, they also made a mistake in judgement, because they were actually bailing the RIAA out of bad publicity.

I am now convinced that P2P United is a group of lame cowards who do a disservice to p2p. They do not represent the highest aspirations of p2p filesharing, but instead are looking to score public relations points with Congress and the public. Their apologetic attitude and attempt to appear responsible does p2p filesharing a disservice. They lack the conviction to take a stand for what is right because they are so bent on trying to do what is popular.

We can do better than this. They do not represent the heart and soul of p2p filesharing. They have taken our pure message and corrupted it, using it for their own self-promotion.