FTC on P2P

While all eyes were on the Supreme Court's decision against file-sharing services in MGM v. Grokster this week, a lot of people missed a meaty report from the Federal Trade Commission: "Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Technology: Consumer Protection and Competition Issues" (in pdf format). Interestingly, the risks of file-sharing were only the fourth one down in the FTC's list of conclusions - after describing what P2P enables, the variety of its applications, and the fact that the technology "continues to evolve in response to market and legal forces." The report, with the latest thinking and data on this extremely popular use of the Net (that is not going to go away because of a Supreme Court decision), is the product of a two-day P2P summit last December that brought together P2P software makers, academics, entertainment industry executives, tech-research firms, and representatives of government agencies and consumer groups. For the highlights, please see this week's issue of my newsletter.