File Sharing : Copyright For Information Professionals

In recent years, the file sharing of copyrighted material has come under fire. It is a topic that is becoming increasingly morally debatable, as people question whether downloading copyrighted material is to be considered stealing or not. The government and legal action has taken what is mostly harmless file sharing of pop culture and turned it into a very serious crime due to industry pressures. However, there are still supporters of file sharing like myself whom believe the act can be justified and is still ethically sound. In this essay I will explain how copyright, fair use, and public domain play a role in file sharing and also describe why it is not unreasonable for society to commit the crime of copyright infringement.

In 1999, Shawn Fanning and his little program called Napster created quite a stir in society. Napster's software allows music listeners to open pieces of their personal hard drives to everyone using Napster, sharing whatever MP3 songs they have already downloaded or stored. At any time, thousands of people are online, sharing hundreds of thousands of songs, many of which are technically illegal to download without the permission of the copyright holders. [1] This led to a lawsuit filed by the Recording Industry Association of America, with the rock group Metallica as its frontman. In this case, several issues were brought up, one of which was the right of the creator of the music to control what happens with

Millions of users can be linked to each other through this software at one time. The software is often free and easily available. Services such as Kazaa, Ares, LimeWire and BearShare are examples of sites that offer these programs free of charge. Other times, the software may be offered in the form of a subscription, such as iTunes and Napster. But is file sharing ethical? The music industry says no, where as the millions of file sharers agree that downloading is.

A&M Records vs Napster was one of the biggest copyright infringement cases that later defined the legality of file sharing. It was a class action lawsuit that include over fifteen major record labels including Universal Studios, Warner Bros, and Sony Entertainment. The official case though is called A&M Records vs Napster. A&M Records sued Napster claiming they were infringing on their plaintiff's intellectual property. Napster was a peer to peer file sharing service. It was mostly used to share mp3 music files in mass volumes. This was right at the start of mp3 players. Music was starting to become easily accessible through digital copies.

With technology so readily available there are many people and companies who have participated in similar illegal activities. The original copyright law did not take into consideration the digital area. By implementing Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) it has tightened up the protection of things online and in the digital arena.

The questions of law before the court were about LimeWire’s role. Did their users infringe copyrights? Had it induced users to infringe?

This is where the dilemma starts. As time has passed and technologies have become available to the average people of the world, including those with lesser amounts of disposable money, the ability to “share or loan” electronic material has become increasingly popular. The question still remains in the mind of this author; what is the difference between sharing and audio cassette with a friend and sharing an MP3 that has been legally copied from disk or downloaded from Itunes? In the eyes of many people, there is not a difference in these two concepts. In the eyes of many, the concept of sharing a MP3 is that same as sharing a cassette but has followed the theory of evolution and grown from the era of physical items, like cassettes, and evolved to the electronic media market. This sharing concept brings forth another question. Why did music industry and other various media companies not try to enforce the existing laws when it was only video and audio cassettes? Could it be that “back in the day”, the number of cassettes / albums being shared were not near the numbers of electronic media being shared today? This seems to be the probable answer because to share a cassette or album there needs to be some form of physical contact between the two participants and to share electronic media the two participants can be

Artists such as Metallica have suffered from this problem. They sued Napster for copyright infringement and were on their way to shut Napster from its services. Napster was facing legal charges from both the artists and the music industry and that made it hard for them to fight the battle. They thought it was easy, but the judge ruled against Napster.

The heavy metal band Metallica and rapper Dr. Dre also filed lawsuits against Napster. The courts ruled against the file sharing site, forcing it to shut down in 2001, which eventually caused the company to file for bankruptcy the following year. In addition, the RIAA went the extra mile and began prosecuting individual users of Napster. Astonishingly, in 2003, “the record industry sued 261 American music fans for sharing songs on peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing networks, kicking off an unprecedented legal campaign” (Electronic Frontier Foundation). These lawsuits scared many music fans out of using P2P networks, but it also cleared the path for the music industry to attract them in a new way: with legal music download

Napster made an argument that it provided a service where music could be temporarily sampled, prior to purchase by the end-user. The courts rejected Napster’s claims and considered sampling to be copyright infringement even if the Napster end user eventually purchased the music. Napster was found guilty of knowingly assisting and encouraging violation of record company/record label rights. As a result of the law cases the record companies had to provide Napster with lists of the recordings that were on MusicShare. Napster had to comply by removing all that was on the

The recording industry has lots of experience battling file-sharing. Since 1999, recording companies have sued some 35,000 individuals, as well as Napster, Grokster, LimeWire and other companies that were making and distributing file-sharing software. Recording companies won several landmark court rulings, drove file-sharing companies out of business or into new lines of work, and collected settlements from tens of thousands of people for illegally sharing files.

Napster may have been popular with free lancers but not with other sound recording companies. According to Implications for the Digital Music Library, members of the music industry filed a lawsuit against Napster by accusing Napster of copyright infringement. (Crews) One of the biggest violations that

Recording industries to this day are continuously launching lawsuits file sharing software companies, one of their most notable lawsuits being against Napster, a pioneer of file sharing software. Though Napster did settle with the industry and started a subscription fee for all users, internet “pirates” are still managing to find new ways that allow file sharing can continue all over the Internet. Industries attempted to target people emotionally by creating ad campaigns describing file sharing as the equivalent to theft; however, these were only met with mixed success. This was perhaps due to the fact that file sharing also exposed the fact that the artists who create the music see very little profit. With the majority of profits going to the marketing and distribution practices of major record labels, society was left wondering where the real “theft” was

Napster, a free online file sharing network, allowed peers to share digital files directly with each other by way of connections through its software and system. The no cost peer-to-peer sharing gained popularity, particularly with trendy music. A&M Records took notice of the free digital music downloads and brought suit against Napster for direct, contributory, and vicarious copyright infringements (Washington University School of Law, 2013).

In the digitalized the age, people have the ability to easily spread and share knowledge. With this great ability people are also given the tools to infringe upon the intellectual property of others. Whether this be through intentional copyright infringement, plagiarism or any other action that infringes upon the rights of others intellectual property. With so many cases of copyright infringement being brought before the legal system of the United States and other countries the problem of copyright infringement has grown out of control. Legally copyright infringement is a "strict liability" tort, which means that intentions don 't matter, if infringement occurred, then the infringer is liable. Copyright laws being as complex as they are have multiple ways to interpret it, with the United States having “Fair Use” as a vague way of being able to use this content. This ability to use also can lead to the infringement upon others works, whether this is by willfully violating a copyright, just plain ignorance the copyright or not understanding how to comply with a copyright.