What is P2P?

As a parent or carer, you’ve probably already heard your children talk about “ﬁle-sharing”, “downloading” or “P2P” (peer-to-peer). It’s a hot topic for young people. The simple reason: music.

People of all ages have always loved to share music, and – just as with digital photography – the Internet has made it extremely easy to share tunes with friends (and strangers) anywhere. Services like Kazaa, LimeWire and BitTorrent that offer ﬁle-sharing, or P2P for short, have millions of users around the world.

P2P has received a lot of media attention because of legal issues to do with sharing copyright music and ﬁlm. But that is just one of the risks involved. In this guide we look at the wider issues of harmful content/contact and privacy and security, as well as the legal risks. This will help you to understand how your family can enjoy digital music and stay safe and legal.

How does P2P work?

Each ﬁle-sharing network is a little different, but basically a would-be ﬁle-sharer goes to a website and downloads its P2P software onto the computer. Usually the software creates a “shared media” folder on your computer which opens it up to fellow ﬁle-sharers. This enables you to exchange photos and videos, as well as music, software and games, directly between your computer and theirs.

What are the risks to my children?

There are beneﬁts to ﬁle-sharing – for example, you could make your own created music available to millions of people. But the risks are real, too.

HARMFUL CONTENT/CONTACT

The greatest risk to children on P2P is unwelcome content, such as pornographic or violent images. Indeed, studies have shown that porn is being widely shared on the P2P networks and that people purposely misname ﬁles to trick people into downloading them. A ﬁlter that can block website addresses and keywords on Web pages rarely blocks porn or violent images and videos on P2P networks. Even ﬁles named “Winnie the Pooh” or “Pokemon” have been found to contain pornography.

As a parent, you also need to be aware that ﬁle-sharing software can allow users to chat to other ﬁle-sharers, most of them strangers, so the same concerns and rules about chatting on the Internet should apply here too. See www.chatdanger.com.

PRIVACY AND SECURITY

File-sharing software opens “doors” in your computer which can compromise your privacy and security.

Spyware

The biggest pest is spyware – little software programs that are downloaded with media ﬁles or “bundled” with ﬁle-sharing software.

Some spyware even logs your keystrokes and provides the person who controls it with passwords, credit card numbers and other conﬁdential information on your computer.

Privacy

You can inadvertently share more of your computer ﬁles with other ﬁle-sharers than you mean to. As studies have shown, this could include conﬁdential information such as medical records and ﬁnancial information.

Viruses

File-sharers’ computers are vulnerable to the viruses infecting other machines on the P2P networks and to people trying to control computers remotely, or spammers who want to make money by using thousands of “zombie” PCs to send ads about low-cost mortgages and cheap drugs. One study found that nearly half of the software ﬁles on one P2P network contained viruses or other malicious code. [1]

If your child downloads one of these malicious ﬁles, your PC could be used, among other things, as a porn distributor. If your family PC has been performing slowly, ﬁle-sharing might be the culprit.

LEGAL RISKS

Thousands of ﬁle-sharers have been sued by the recording and ﬁlm industries – and many have paid big ﬁnes. While there is no problem if you are sharing the content that you have originally created yourself, nearly all music and ﬁlm ﬁles on ﬁle-sharing services are protected by copyright, and therefore people uploading (sending) them run legal risks.

Downloading music from p2p is illegal in most countries, but people who “share” or “upload” music on the Internet, particularly if they upload a lot, run a greater risk of being sued or prosecuted. Parents can be held responsible for what happens on the family computer, even if they are not themselves engaged in illegal activity. On average, people who have settled out of court have had to pay thousands of euros.

So what can we do as parents?

There are 3 practical steps you can take right now:

1. Talk with the filesharer(s) in your home!

File-sharing and other forms of technology in the home are opportunities to increase parent–child communication. Get your children to show you how they are using the computer and what they are sharing. Talk about copyright, and who loses out when songs get distributed on the Internet – performing artists? Songwriters? Are they deprived of the chance to earn a living from their work? But also - who pays the bill if someone in your house gets sued?

2. Check your computer

You can make sure you are aware of what is on your family computer – whether you or another member of the household put it there. There is free information available that will take you through how to identify or disable P2P software step by step; see, for example, www.ifpi.org.

It is also important to make sure that your computer is protected against viruses and spyware and has ﬁrewall software installed. You can generally get free anti-virus software from your Internet service provider (ISP). Up to date anti-virus software can help capture anything downloaded from P2P. See www.getnetwise.org for details of tools to help protect your computer.

3. Explore the Web’s legal music

There’s loads of it – more than a million tracks of all genres and periods – both for purchase and for free. For less than the price of an adult bus fare, you can download a track from a legal music retailer and keep it for life. There are scores of legal music retailers on the Web and these sites are safe and guarantee sound quality. For links to over 200 legal music retailers worldwide, go to www.pro-music.org/musiconline.htm.

There’s also plenty of legal music available free of charge on the Web – sites where musicians want fans to sample their work and learn about concerts and albums they’re promoting. To ﬁnd them, search a favourite musician, group or label’s own site. Sound quality may vary, but there’s a great deal to explore.

Resources and further advice

	For everything you want to know about music online see www.pro-music.org.
	For safety guidance on Instant Messenger, chat, games, mobiles and e-mail, see Childnet’s www.chatdanger.com website.
	For further information on resources for schools, see Childnet’s www.kidsmart.org.uk website.
	For daily kid-tech news for parents, including the latest on P2P, see www.netfamilynews.org.
	To report illegal content on the Internet see www.inhope.org. These national hotlines do not handle copyright issues.

[1] See article in Wired News: www.wired.com/news/business/0,1367,61852,00.html