The record industry's use of subpoenas to target peer-to-peer (P2P) users for alleged copyright infringement will cause "massive collateral damage" to privacy with little gain to copyright protection.

Testifying before a Senate Committee examining issues with P2P networks, William Barr, executive vice president and general counsel at communications company Verizon, called for negotiation between copyright owners and ISPs.

The Recording Industry Association of America has filed 261 lawsuits against users of P2P sites in the US courts.

Barr insisted that it is vital to reach a compromise which respects the privacy rights of internet users.

He claimed that Congress never intended such "broad and promiscuous" legal powers as pursued by the recording industry under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

"This reading of the DMCA accords truly breathtaking powers to anyone claiming to be a copyright owner, powers that Congress has not even bestowed on law enforcement and national security personnel," said Barr in a statement.

"In essence, any private party willing to assert a property right in any form of expression is constituted as their own roving grand jury, without any of the normal checks and protections that apply to governmental investigations."

Barr maintained that lawmakers had no opportunity to address and balance the interests of copyright holders, ISPs and internet users because technologies such as P2P did not exist when Congress enacted the DMCA in 1998.

He urged the committee to consider these interests now before "irreparable damage is done to public confidence in the internet as a medium of free expression".

"Verizon believes that lawful and licensed access to quality content is essential to the continuing development of the internet," said Barr.