The City of Culver City, California recently announced the addition of Audible Magic's CopySense Network Appliance to its free Wi-Fi network.

The new solution, implemented after network analysis showed that the network was being used for illegal downloading and surfing porn, will be used to filter illegal and offensive content.

John Richo, the city's director of information technology, says, "As part of the incentive plan to bring pedestrian traffic to Town Plaza, people were quick to sign up and it was clear this was going to be a popular offering. It was only after we saw an activity report from CopySense Appliance that we realized there were potential problems. The report reflected illegal-download use and some bandwidth was being consumed as a result of accesses to pornographic sites. This activity is clearly not something tax dollars should be paying for."

Audible magic CEO Vance Ikezoye says, "Municipalities across the nation are establishing public wireless networks. They need to understand the challenges they will encounter when deploying these types of networks. They will want to implement measures to ensure their citizens get a positive user experience. Unauthorized or pornographic P2P file sharing applications can crowd out legitimate uses of the Internet and can expose the public and especially minors to unnecessary risk. Our products provide municipalities a simple and effective solution that dramatically reduces the risk of a problem involving their community."

Audible Magic's press release is here.