SafeMedia Corp. Calls On Universities To Preserve Copyright Holders Rights And Protect Student Privacy By Eliminating Illegal P2P Filesharing At Congressional Hearing

Washington, DC —SafeMedia Corporation CEO and Founder, Safwat Fahmy, challenged colleges and universities to work to eliminate illegal peer-to-peer (P2P) filesharing of copyrighted material on campus networks in testimony this week (Tuesday, June 5, 2007), before the House Committee on Science and Technology.

Fahmy briefed the committee on SafeMedia products designed to address the illegal sharing of copyrighted materials on campus P2P networks. The hearing, "The Role of Technology in Reducing Illegal Filesharing: A University Perspective," focused on the experiences of universities that have implemented technological measures to reduce P2P sharing on campus networks.

In his testimony, Fahmy highlighted a disturbing report recently issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) that identified the serious security and privacy risks that major P2P filesharing programs create for their users.

“Some colleges and universities have been reluctant to adopt effective policies to deal with illegal filesharing. Some cite student privacy as a concern for refusing to stop clearly illegal filesharing, but how does it protect student privacy to allow P2P filesharing services to freely roam students’ computer hard drives for folders and documents without their explicit permission?” asked Fahmy in his testimony to the committee. “I would ask if there isn’t a double standard here. Colleges and universities are fiercely protective of their own intellectual property. Why are they so cavalier when it comes to the intellectual property of others?”

Since the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998, colleges and universities are not held liable for copyright violations taking place on their campus networks, they are, however, required to cooperate with copyright holders who complain that their intellectual property is being freely distributed over campus networks.

Fahmy's testimony briefed the members of the Committee on SafeMedia's global "P2P Disaggregator" (P2PD) technology which is designed to destroy contaminated P2P networks by draining the illegal content of those networks. The music industry has sent nearly 60,000 notices of copyright violations to more than 1,000 campuses and has many lawsuits have been file against students at more than 130 schools.

SafeMedia Corp. offers this technology to the global internet community in a variety of implementations to support different bandwidth and customer requirements locally, nationally and internationally:

DSL/cable ISPs: to be integrated in their modem/router the ISP implements in the customer site. This is targeted to home users and small business. This does not require any investment by the user

Network devices manufactures: to be integrated in their network devices (such as edge routers and concentrators) supporting T1 to OC198. This is targeted to universities and business and requires incremental costs of upgrading the current network edge routers and concentrators

“Clouseau®” stand alone network appliance, which supports bandwidth of 10MB/s to 10GB/s (and high availability models). Clouseau protects the customer investment and requires no incremental costs to upgrade any existing network device. “Universities can purchase Clouseau for immediate implementation,” Fahmy explained, “Clouseau® will detect and prohibit illegal P2P traffic while allowing the passage of legal P2P such as BitTorrent. Clouseau is inexpensive. Users simply plug it in the subnet as a bridge and it goes to work without altering their network topology."

[Editors: For more on SafeMedia's products, which utilize groundbreaking technology visit the SafeMedia Corp. media news center, which includes the full Congressional testimony, other recent Internet piracy reports, white papers, and the USPTO report mentioned above visit:
http://www.mayocommunications.com/00-2007-SafeMediaCorp/MediaCenter.htm.
or visit www.SafeMedia.com for more about the company.