StreamCast Chief Weiss Lobbies Vs. Bill Banning P2P File Sharing; Hatch Is Bill's Sponsor; Industry should be given chance to self-regulate, argues P2P firm's CEO.(INTERNET & TECHNOLOGY)(Q & A)

Byline: BRIAN DEAGON

Michael Weiss has a bone to pick with Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, the sponsor of a bill that would ban peer-to-peer file-sharing networks.

The language of the bill would outlaw and potentially cripple Weiss' company, StreamCast, owner of the P2P file-sharing software called Morpheus. Other well-known P2P companies include Grokster and Kazaa. Their software is used daily by millions of Web surfers to search and download music, as well as documents, images and other content.

Some of the downloading is legal, but most of the downloads are of copyrighted materials, such as songs, violating copyright laws. Hatch's bill, known in short as the Induce Act, has broad support in the music industry, which claims P2P networks result in huge sales losses for music and movie companies. But dozens of Internet companies and tech associations oppose the bill.

Last year, a federal court ruled …