Network security specialist Blue Coat Systems surveyed almost 300 people between late 2003 and early 2004 and found that nearly 60% of employees are unconcerned that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) may take legal action against a company that holds copyrighted content on its network.
According to Blue Coat the recent lawsuits against individuals have driven many P2P users to share files from company networks.
Steve Mullaney, vice president of marketing for Blue Coat, said:
"The enterprise environment appears to be a safe-haven for the use of illegal peer-to-peer file sharing. Employees are not sufficiently worried about their companies getting sued by organizations such as the RIAA or MPAA. In addition to the legal risks created with illegal P2P file sharing, P2P downloading can easily consume 30% of network bandwidth, consume network storage and initiate spyware. It's time for enterprises to stop letting employees do things that put their business at risk."
The solution, says Blue Coat, is to gain visibility into all P2P activity on the network, establish an acceptable internet use policy across the entire enterprise, and enforce that policy.