Re: Copyrights -- Comm 435 at GMU

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Date Posted: 06:22:36 03/29/04 Mon
Author: Scott Bradford
Subject: Re: Copyrights
In reply to: John Murray 's message, "Re: Copyrights" on 20:26:28 03/28/04 Sun

There's a lot of interesting issues relating to these file sharing services. When you think about it, Kazaa and Grokster and the others can be used to trade legal files (if I record my own song, for example, and put it up for others to listen to). So that raises the question: are the services themselves violating copyright by allowing people to share whatever files they want, or are the USERS who share copyrighted files the ones who are breaking the law?

The put that into perspective a bit, CD writers allow people to make copies of CDs. But if I use my computer to make 30 copies of a CD and give them away to my friends, who broke the law? Was it the company that included the CD writer in my computer and the software to use it (Apple, in my case), or the person who copied the CD (me, in this example).

>Advanced peer-to-peer filing sharing services
>including Kazaa, Morpheus, and Grokster have sprouted
>up everywhere. The decentralization of these
>companies makes them extremely hard for law
>enforcement to pin down. Kazaa itself is not even
>located within the U.S., but inside foreign countries
>where many U.S. copyright laws do not apply.
>
>The president of the RIAA, Cary Sherman, has admitted,
>�illegal music download sites will never be
>eradicated. Our aim is not to completely eliminate
>music piracy or illegal peer-to-peer services � as
>long as it is within a reasonable amount of control we
>will be happy but we are still a long way from that�
>(Waters, 2003).

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Replies:

Re: Copyrights -- Elaine Williams, 11:30:15 03/29/04 Mon
Re: Copyrights -- James Wigington, 18:07:01 03/29/04 Mon
- Re: Copyrights -- Scott Bradford, 11:24:07 03/30/04 Tue
- Re: Copyrights -- Nate Hewitt, 12:20:40 03/30/04 Tue