File Sharing Copyright Laws
Copyright law is still struggling to keep pace with advancements in computer technology. The ease with which copyrighted material can be copied by almost anyone has resulted in rampant piracy. Peer-to-peer file sharing is a conscious attempt to evade copyright law, although this practice of sharing is widely tolerated in many areas of the world regardless of its legal status.
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Why File Sharing Violates U.S. Copyright Law
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Copyrights protect original works of authorship that are fixed in a tangible medium. In the context of music or software, a work is fixed in a tangible medium if it is recorded, including magnetic recording. Copyright law offers copyright holders the exclusive right to reproduce, distribute and publicly perform copyrighted work. People who share their files on the Internet are distributing these works (and arguably "performing" them by offering their use on a public forum), and people who download these works are reproducing them by making copies of them.
The "Fair Use" Exception
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Copyright law allows anyone to use a small portion of a copyrighted work (a quotation from a book, for example) for certain socially beneficial purposes such as education. The fair use exception has often been used as a legal defense in prosecutions and civil lawsuits based on file sharing. The peer-to-peer network BitTorrent breaks large media files into small pieces and then distributes them to the user via the fastest possible connection, often combining pieces from many different media files of the same copyrighted work and assembling them into a complete copy of the work like a jigsaw puzzle. This method leaves open the legal argument that each piece represents an instance of "fair use" even if the end result is royalty-free access to the entire copyrighted work.
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Liability of File Sharing Networks
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Since so many people are sharing and downloading pirated music from the Internet, copyright law with respect to file sharing has become extremely difficult to enforce. One problem is that the developers and operators of peer-to-peer file sharing networks have no direct involvement in the reproduction and distribution of copyrighted work -- they simply provide the platform rather than directly infringing on copyrights. Legal concepts such as contributory infringement and vicarious infringement have been used to challenge these networks, and the Digital Millennium Act allows peer-to-peer file sharing networks to operate as long as certain policies are observed.
Penalties
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Civil penalties for copyright infringement are theoretically unlimited -- an infringer is obligated to make good on all economic damages done to the copyright holder, no matter what the amount. Triple damages are sometimes available. Copyright infringement is a federal crime. Maximum criminal penalties are set at five years in prison and a $250,000 fine for each count, although imposition of the maximum penalty has been rare so far.
International Copyright Law
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The Canadian Copyright Board has ruled that downloading music for personal use is legal under Canadian copyright law. The Canadian Supreme Court subsequently ruled that uploading music for the purpose of file sharing is also legal in Canada. Even countries that have prohibited file sharing often fail to enforce this prohibition, particularly Russia and China.
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