Be Wary of Possible P2P Entrapment

A couple weeks ago I posted on the dangers of P2P, citing efforts by the MPAA and the RIAA to sue users of peer-to-peer technology, what they seem to see as copyright infringement. Yesterday, Ars Technica posted more information on how the motion picture industry and the recording industry apparently retain a company to entrap P2P users. The information that company, MediaDefender, gathers is apparently then sent on to Attorney Generals' offices.

You will recall that P2P is a legitimate technology used far and wide for several and sundry purposes (if you need a refresher, see our overview or Bradley Mitchell's FAQ). The constitutionality of all of this P2P spying is, however, unclear as yet. But if you build your own P2P network using the tutorials on web clients, web servers, or network programming, or if you use one of the many P2P clients available today, you may want to take care not to embroil yourself in the fight.