Content piracy clogging the 'Net, costing jobs

Speaking at SuperCOMM on Friday, NBC Universal Executive Vice President and General Counsel Richard Cotton said Internet service providers have a significant role to play in helping stem the tide of pirated content that is clogging broadband pipes and costing U.S. jobs. "Of course counterfeiting and piracy will never go to zero," Cotton said. "What I believe we need is to send people signals, cues that certain behavior is inacceptable and we haven't started down that path on broadband Internet. We need to do a much better job of educating people that accessing copyrighted content is illegal and that it has consequences." One of those consequences is network congestion, Cotton argued, citing research that showed that 50% of Internet traffic is generated by those illegally access copyrighted material.