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Consumers groups to back P2P

John Borland Staff Writer, CNET News.com
John Borland
covers the intersection of digital entertainment and broadband.
John Borland

A group of consumer heavyweights – the Consumers Union, the Consumers Federation of America, U.S. PIRG, and Free Press – say they'll release a major paper on peer to peer technology tomorrow. The idea is to fight back against "attacks on file-sharing networks" from the record labels and movie studios, and raise awareness of the consumer benefits of P2P, the groups say.

This will be unlikely to sway the Supreme Court, which will soon rule on the legal status of file-swapping software companies. But once the issue returns to Congress, having the traditional consumer groups backing P2P could make it harder for Hollywood and record label groups to win copyright-friendly legislation.