File sharing goes before Supreme Court
We were talking about peer-to-peer networking in class and how it is illegal. I found this article about how serious it is. MGM v. Grokster. This company has to go to the supreme court because of it. When we use our p2p netwroks to download music or whatever, we have to remember that it is illegal. We talked about napster and how it was in trouble the same way. It has a license now to give out music and videos, etc. legally, with a monthly payment plan. Read more about it at http://www.cnn.com/2005/LAW/02/16/hilden.fileswap/index.html?iref=newssearch
Izhak Shahdin
Wow…I knew it was a serious matter, but i just never heard of stories of people actually get caught doing it. But i have a question. If you dont get back to me, i might have to ask Professor heinrich. And you might have went over this already in class, but i probabaly wasnt there.
My questions is..Is downaloading music from Limwire or napster ILLEGAL? or only if your sharing the music with someone else Or is both illegal?? I think both is illegal, but i just want to make sure.
Lisa.
Limewire is a peer to peer network network right? If it is, yes, it’s illegal to share music that you do not own the copyright to (music you created). While music and movie sharing is illegal, I would advise people not to use Limewire, as it is less safe to use (security wise) then other P2P networks. Napster is not illegal– if you’re paying for the music you download. Generally the only people that are brought to court over illegal file sharing are the companies, but individual users can and have been brought to court (generally people who have done ALOT of file sharing). It will be interesting to see the judges’ decision on the matter; ruling in favor of MGM would mean interfering with how a business interacts with its customers (as said in the article, its kind of “un-American” to do so), but ruling in favor of the P2P company would be condoning the illegal behavior. A compromise seems to be the only solution.
John Goldner