America's new cubicle pirates find their loot online

Teens and their insatiable appetite for free music have highlighted the legal problems of sharing audio, video, and other files online. But there is mounting evidence that adults may be breaking the law just as frequently.

Many adults who download files - which are often pornographic videos - do so on their company networks, according to new studies, consuming sizable chunks of bandwidth and other resources and putting their companies at risk of lawsuits for copyright infringement.

Already, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) are dropping subtle hints that corporations may be the next target of an already massive lawsuit campaign against file-sharers.

"To date, we have not taken actions against individuals the way the music industry has, but we don't rule out anything," says MPAA spokesman Rich Taylor. "We have arrows in our quiver, and we'll do what we need to."

In one of the first studies of its kind, Blue Coat, a network monitoring company in Sunnyvale, Calif., reported last week that 39 percent of employees who use file- sharing services do so on company networks. That kind of activity can easily consume a third of a company's bandwidth, according to Blue Coat.

But wasted bandwidth may be the least of a company's worries, according to the Blue Coat survey of 300 respondents from public and private firms. Peer-to-peer downloading also consumes network storage, can result in lower worker productivity, and poses considerable legal risks.

"We've always assumed this is a youth thing," says Eric Garland, chief executive of Big Champagne, an online media measurement firm in Los Angeles. "But ... the motivation that drives the kids in dorms is the same motivation that drives the overgrown kids in cubicles."

Both groups get free access to high-speed Internet and vast storage capacity for their files, he adds.

Unlike college students, however, employees don't have a right of privacy when they're on a corporate network, and most activity within the network can be tracked, says Deborah Peckham, an attorney specializing in copyright law and file-sharing.

"Technologies are out there that will allow employers to monitor not just file-sharing, but how the network is being used in general - particularly with pornography. If an employee is downloading with the knowledge of the employer, or the employer should have had knowledge, the employer is liable under a theory of contributory copyright infringement."

Surprisingly, some companies appear hesitant to crack down. "Most organizations are not going to want this going on in their network because it does not help the business in any way," says Frank Cabri, director of corporate marketing for Blue Coat. "But we've seen organizations that aren't concerned about it and don't want to admit it's an issue."

Among file-sharers everywhere, the amount of material that is pornographic is high and rising. In the past 18 months, the share of peer-to-peer network traffic accounted for by video files jumped from 12.4 percent to 36.2 percent, according to Big Champagne. And 50.7 percent of all video files being shared are pornographic - up from 42 percent last September.

Page: 1 | 2