Download at your own risk

WASHINGTON — The battle against those who illegally download music from the Internet onto their computers is escalating into "Star Wars" territory — and Sen. Orrin Hatch is in the thick of it.

Hatch, R-Utah, said Tuesday he is interested in the development of new technology that would remotely destroy the computers of people who illegally download tunes.

During a hearing on copyright abuses, Hatch, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, acknowledged that there are bright sides to peer-to-peer — or "P2P" — networks in that they easily allow computer users to directly share research, entertainment and more on the Internet.

But, he said, peer-to-peer technology also has a dark side, including violation of legitimate copyrights and the fact that if users of P2P software — such as KaZaA or Gnutella — are not careful with settings during sometimes complicated installation, it may inadvertently allow strangers to download everything from a computer.

Everything. Bank account information. Passwords. Tax returns. E-mail.

During a discussion on methods to frustrate computer users who illegally exchange music and movie files over the Internet, Hatch asked technology executives if there were ways to actually damage computers involved in such file trading. Legal experts have said any such attack would violate federal anti-hacking laws.

"No one is interested in destroying anyone's computer," replied Randy Saaf of MediaDefender Inc., a secretive Los Angeles company that builds technology to disrupt music downloads. One technique deliberately downloads pirated material very slowly so other users can't.

"I'm interested," Hatch interrupted.

He said damaging someone's computer "may be the only way you can teach somebody about copyrights."

The senator — a composer who earned $18,000 last year in song writing royalties — acknowledged Congress would have to enact an exemption for copyright owners from liability for damaging computers. He endorsed technology that would twice warn a computer user about illegal online behavior, "then destroy their computer."

"If we can find some way to do this without destroying their machines, we'd be interested in hearing about that," Hatch said. "If that's the only way, then I'm all for destroying their machines. If you have a few hundred thousand of those, I think people would realize" the seriousness of their actions, he said.

Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee's senior Democrat, later said the problem is serious but called Hatch's idea too drastic a remedy to be considered.