Hail to the thief: a tribute to Kazaa

THIS PAPER CONSIDERS THE ONGOING LITIGATION against the peer-to-peer network KaZaA. Record companies and Hollywood studios have faced jurisdictional and legal problems in suing this network for copyright infringement. As Wired Magazine observes: “The servers are in Denmark. The software is in Estonia. The domain is registered Down Under, the corporation on a tiny island in the South Pacific. The users—60 million of them—are everywhere around the world.” In frustration, copyright owners have launched copyright actions against intermediaries—like against Internet Service Providers such as Verizon. They have also embarked on filing suits against individual users of file-sharing programs. In addition, copyright owners have called for domestic- and international-law reform with respect to digital copyright. The Senate Committee on Government Affairs of the United States Congress has reviewed the controversial use of subpoenas in suits against users of file-sharing peer-to-peer networks. The United States has encouraged other countries to adopt provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 1998 in bilateral and regional free-trade agreements

P2P and the Future of Private Copying

Since the beginning of the P2P file-sharing controversy, commentators have discussed the radical expansion of copyright law, the industry\u27s controversial enforcement tactics, the need for new legislative and business models, the changing social norms, and the evolving interplay of politics and market conditions. Although these discussions have delved into the many aspects of the controversy, none of them presents a big picture of the issues or explains how they fit within the larger file-sharing debate. Using a holistic approach, this Article brings together existing scholarship while offering some thoughts on the future of private copying. The Article does not seek to advance a new theory or model, which could quickly become obsolete, given the rapid advance of digital and P2P technologies. Rather, it provides guidelines to help policymakers to craft an effective solution to the unauthorized copying problem. This Article begins by examining the RIAA\u27s enforcement tactics, developments in copyright law in 2003, and possible challenges the entertainment industry will face in ensuing years. The Article then evaluates critically proposals commentators have put forward to solve the unauthorized copying problem: (1) mass licensing, (2) compulsory licensing, (3) voluntary collective licensing, (4) voluntary contribution, (5) technological protection, (6) copyright law revision, (7) administrative dispute resolution proceeding, and (8) alternative compensation. Acknowledging the provisional nature of these proposals, this Article contends that policymakers need to adopt a range of solutions that meet the needs of consumers while taking into account the Internet\u27s structural resistance to control, its immutable characteristics as a network, and the changing social norms in the digital copyright world. This Article concludes by challenging policymakers and commentators to step outside their mental boundaries to rethink the P2P file-sharing debate. By presenting thought experiments that compare the ongoing P2P file-sharing wars to (1) a battle for self-preservation between humans and machines, (2) an imaginary World War III, and (3) the conquest of Generation Y, this Article demonstrates that policymakers should not focus on legal solutions alone. Instead, they should pay more attention to market forces, technological architectures, and social norms, which also play very important roles in crafting an effective solution to the unauthorized copying problem. The Article concludes by offering some guidelines that may point the way to this solution

Communication Breakdown: The Recording Industry\u27s Pursuit of the Individual Music User, a Comparison of U.S. and E.U. Copyright Protections for Internet Music File Sharing

While music file sharing over the internet has become a common practice in recent years, record companies blame the illegal swapping for a 31% drop in compact disk sales since mid-2000. In an ever-evolving attempt to gain a stronghold on the distribution of digital music via the internet, the recording industry recently began filing lawsuits against the individual internet file sharer in both the United States the European Union. This comment examines the development of copyright protections in the United States and the European Union, including recent legislation under each system, and argues that a balance of rights and technical development is needed to carry the music industry into the future. The comment also examines the repercussions of the recent Recording Industry Association of America lawsuits, proposals for other methods of embracing the technology are explored, and an argument is made for a United States and European Union to return to traditional private use protections on which initial copyright law was founded

Applying the “Contextual Integrity” Model of Privacy to Personal Blogs in the Blogoshere

In this paper, we analyze some controversial aspects of blogging and the blogosphere from the perspective of privacy. In particular, we focus on Helen Nissenbaum’s theory of privacy as “contextual integrity” and apply it to personal blogs, in general, and the case of the “Washingtonienne” blogger, in particular. We examine the question of whether personal blogs that are not password protected can be considered “normatively private contexts” according to Nissenbaum’s principles of privacy. We argue that they cannot. Using Nissenbaum’s original model, we conclude that privacy expectations for those who disclose personal information in such blogs are unrealistic. We also suggest that Nissenbaum’s expanded theory (see Nissenbaum, 2010) can inform the contemporary debate about privacy and blogging in a wide variety of newer technological contexts, in addition to personal blogs, and we encourage researchers to apply Nissenbaum’s model in those contexts