File Sharing Matthew Prenzler
What is File Sharing? The practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents, or electronic books.
Types of File Sharing FTP (File Transfer Protocol) P2P (Peer-to-Peer) BitTorrent Online sharing services Email
Legal Issues Who owns the file? The creator of the file? Anyone who has the file on their machine? It’s everyone’s file!!!! It’s my file!!!
Grey areas and loopholes Who’s violating copyrights? The downloaders? The ones providing the files?
Court Battles Capitol v. Thomas case A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC (Limewire)
Silly Lawyers….. Napster - $26 million Limewire - $75 trillion (greater than GDP of entire world economy) (settled $105 million out of court) The Pirate Bay - ~$10 million….for now
The Pirate Bay Swedish company in the front lines of anti-copyright movement 2004- site online as thepiratebay.org 2006- servers taken by police and shut down for three days. Result: site traffic doubled. 2009- Sued for $3.5 million and forced to change name to thepiratebay.se in 2010 - injunction against their bandwidth provider
“"The world's most resilient BitTorrent site" Political activists who are trying to prove a point If it is on the internet it is for anybody Peter Sunde on his source code: "I wouldn't actually want to have that source code because it sucks – but don't blame me. You could ask the police because they have a copy of it and its public information – they stole it!“ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PZpJCTsNtw
Questions?