USPTO Takes Aim At File-Sharing Programs

by Glen Shapiro, LawAndTax-News.com, New York

08 March 2007

The Department of Commerce’s United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has this week released a report which concludes that the distributors of five popular filesharing programs repeatedly deployed features that they knew or should have known could cause users to share files inadvertently.

The report, entitled Filesharing Programs and “Technological Features to Induce Users to Share,” which was published on Monday, identifies five features in recent versions of five popular filesharing programs that could cause users to inadvertently distribute to others downloaded files or their own proprietary or sensitive files.

“Computer programs that can cause unintended filesharing contribute to copyright infringement, and they threaten the security of personal, corporate, and governmental data,” noted Jon Dudas, Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property.

According to the USPTO:

"The report shows that distributors of filesharing programs deployed features that could cause inadvertent sharing even after repeated warnings that these features could facilitate identity theft and breaches of personal and national security. For example, in 2003, two Congressional hearings were prompted by research indicating inadvertent sharing could be caused by search-wizard and share-folder features. After the hearings, many distributors adopted a Code of Conduct that prohibited use of these features."

"Nevertheless, in 2004 and 2005, many of these same distributors kept deploying more aggressive versions of search-wizard or share-folder features. Many distributors also deployed other features, like partial-uninstall and coerced-sharing features, that also had a known or obvious potential to cause inadvertent sharing."

"The report also shows that inadvertent sharing has had severe consequences for governments, corporations and individuals. In a 2005 Information Bulletin, the Department of Homeland Security warned that inadvertent filesharing could compromise national security:"

According to the finding of the study, individuals have also been affected. On November 30, 2006, the Denver District Attorney indicted a gang of identity thieves who had used the program LimeWire to access names and account information from personal and business accounts across the country, and then use that information to open new bank accounts in the Denver area.

“A decade ago, no one would have thought that copyright infringement could threaten personal or national security,” concluded Dudas. “Today, that threat is a reality; we need to understand its causes and find solutions.”

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