Downloads and Copyright Law
In today’s world of widespread digital interactivity, the expectation of unlimited free access to information comes into conflict with the efforts of writers, artists and programmers to protect their intellectual property and receive fair payment for their work. While copyright laws have long protected printed works from illegal distribution or reproduction, they also protect original works that take the form of digital media. Organizations such as the Recording Industry Association of America have sued violators of these laws.
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Protection
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Copyright falls under an area of the law known as intellectual property. According to the U.S. Copyright Office, copyright does not protect ideas, facts or concepts, but it does offer a means of protecting individual expressions of those items. A recipe, for instance, does not legally belong to a chef, but the chef’s recorded documentation of that recipe does. Most countries recognize each other’s copyright laws.
Media
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Copyright laws apply to any copyrighted material in any format, digital or otherwise. Copyrighted materials can include photographs, drawings and paintings, architectural plans, music and voice recordings, written text or software programs. The Copyright Act allows software purchasers to make a “fair use” archival or backup copy for private use under the terms of Section 117, but no other section of the law allows for any other type of file copying or distribution.
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Violations
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According to the RIAA, any instance of uploading or downloading copyrighted material without advance permission from the copyright holder violates the law. While fair use allows purchasers of a CD, for instance, to copy the audio to a personal hard drive, if those purchasers then distribute the copied file to friends or an email list, they face civil or criminal prosecution. Trading music on a file-sharing network that has not received advance permission to distribute the items in question may also lead to legal trouble.
Penalties
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People who violate copyright laws by copying or distributing copyrighted music without permission face criminal penalties of up to $250,000 in fines and a possible five-year prison sentence. They may also face a lawsuit by the copyright owners in civil court, forcing them to pay at least $750 for each illegally distributed song plus the plaintiff’s legal fees. These penalties apply even to those who had no intention of profiting financially from the illegal distribution. Another law, called the No Electronic Theft Law, applies similar penalties specifically to digital recordings.
Cases
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In 2003, the RIAA brought lawsuits against 261 individuals for downloading or distributing copyrighted music without permission, requesting damages in the thousands of dollars, according to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The RIAA also threatened over 28,000 other violators with legal consequences. The EFF, contending that the RIAA had unfairly extended its view of copyright violation to merely putting files on a shared network even if no one downloads them, has worked to get individual cases dismissed based on this argument.
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References
- Photo Credit mp3 hand image by giovanni cardinali from Fotolia.com
