File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multi-media (audio, video), documents, or electronic books. Downloading music is a form of file sharing but it can be an example of illegal copyright. Even though it is illegal it is hard to take someone to court for a violation of copyright. The reason for this is that it is difficult to track down the individuals involved. Secondly if a 1,000 people have a way of downloading copyrighted music for free how are you going to take one person to court when there are all these other people using the software. It also appears this type of infringement is a topic which is not taken especially seriously by most people online. A lax attitude towards intellectual property has been present on the web with services such as Napster and LimeWire allowing internet users to redistribute copyrighted material with impunity, and, despite the best efforts of the music and film industries, illegal file sharing continues to this day in various forms. Mind you there has been success against these groups who own these types file sharing services. Such cases include A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. and Arista Records LLC v. Lime Group LLC.
This form of copying is legislated by the Copyright, Designs and Patents act 1988 and the Digital Economy Act. The Copyright, Designs and Patents Act is legislation which enables creators to copyright their work, which means that filesharing is illegal where the creator of the content has not given permission to freely share their work. The Digital Economy Act is designed to protect online businesses, and breaches of these regulations therefore arise where loss of revenues could result from copyrighted material being made freely available rather than purchased from internet retailers. This act includes various sections to tackle illegal file-sharing including a so-called "three strikes" element, which would see persistent pirates cut off from the net. It also includes elements that would give courts the power to block websites that facilitate copyright infringement. Online Companies such as British Telecom, Google and Facebook have considerable opposition to this Act from firms such as, which say that elements of the bill could undermine free speech on the net without reducing copyright infringement. Another aspect of the Digital Economy Act which may have an effect on file sharing is that the onus is now on large ISPs to identify those who may be partaking in illegal downloading and take action against them. It has yet to be seen what effect this will have on the illegal file sharing scene.
Most ISPs consider that illicit file sharing to acquire content that is usually required to be paid for but can be given for free is bad. However the ISPs are extremely unhappy under which people accused of copyright infringement would get a series of increasingly threatening communications, perhaps ending in having their internet connection revoked. TalkTalk, an ISP, has begun a campaign, which says that while "copyright infringement through filesharing is illegal and the government is right to tackle the issue" that "the proposals to deter illegal filesharing announced by Lord Mandelson in September are wrong in principle and won't work in practice". The main issue is that the ISPs don't see why they should have to pay any of it. "Our point is that if the music industry thinks that there's a large benefit in disconnecting these people, it should pay for finding them. There's no benefit to the ISP in it," says Andrew Heaney, TalkTalk's director of strategy and regulation, and the man behind its Don't Disconnect Us campaign.
Due to the fact that it is hard to take to court piracy occurs regularly and continues to grow ultimately meaning that by 2015 that 1.2m jobs in EU countries on the line and a loss of 240bn Euros. Without more effective laws to stop piracy the UK could alone could lose 250,000 million jobs by 2015. Brendan Barber, General Secretary of the TUC, said that the results showed piracy is a major threat to the creative industries in terms of loss of employment and revenues. While it is clear that piracy limits the income of artists, the law on this is still very controversial. Many young people (16 to 24 year olds) think internet file-sharing should be legal than illegal, according to Ofcom research. Young people have a far more relaxed attitude to file-sharing than their elders. The survey found that 45% of adults aged 16-24 believed that downloading music and films from file-sharing sites should be legal. Only 39% said it should be illegal, while 16% said they didn't know. Howe ver, they were the only age group to hold such a liberal attitude to media downloads. Overall, 47% of adults agreed file-sharing should be illegal, with 29% claiming that it shouldn't be against the law. The 55-64 age group was the most conservative, with 57% claiming that file-sharing should be off limits, and only 16% believing it should be within the law.
Other issues discussed in the nature of illegal file sharing is whether discouragement of piracy should be increase. Currently it is a civil offence but should it be a criminal offence. "Sending someone to prison for downloading doesn't get around the problems: people will find different ways of doing it," says Heaney. "There's also a risk of catching innocent people." The standard of proof would also be higher.
iAutoblog the premier autoblogger software
No comments:
Post a Comment