The peer-to-peer industry’s trade group isn’t unreservedly in fav...

association “strongly supports” the two new principles of nondiscrimination and disclosure, he said, and the four current principles “should be applied immediately on a case-by-case basis in relatively mature and developed broadband environments, such as DSL and cable modem.” But the group is worried that the “inherent stringency of detailed rule-making based on these principles could freeze innovation in areas of rapid technological advancement and change.” Nearly echoing the content industry, Lafferty said that “premature government regulation could actually be detrimental to the preservation and maintenance of a free and open Internet.” The rulemaking should focus on allowing for “continued experimentation” in areas where new business models haven’t taken hold, rather than “enforcement aimed at protecting old models,” he said. He proposed reconsideration of copyright laws after “new revenue streams have been defined,” not settling “for mere coexistence with [regulatory] rules that are no longer adequate or applicable.” Lafferty called for context-specific application of the FCC principles depending on network capacity constraints, usage patterns and market competition on different platforms, such as wireless and wireline. In assailing ISPs’ blocking VoIP and P2P applications, Genachowski seemingly ignored business efforts to relieve the concerns of ISPs about bandwidth consumption, Lafferty said - - such as the DCIA’s P4P Working Group, involving about 100 ISPs and P2P companies. The new protocol, which improves the efficiency of file-sharing by connecting users near each other (WID Oct 28 p3), is in commercial deployment by ISPs around the world, he said. The FCC principles, case-by-case enforcement and voluntary efforts “will yield more progress than the rigidity of a static regime bound in conventional rule-making and enforcement procedures.”