Peertopeer file sharing is a legitimate use of

Peer-to-peer file sharing is a legitimate use of university networks despite whatever alleged copyright infringement occurs

Definitions P 2 P: n Peer-to-peer is a type of Internet network allowing a group of computer users with the same networking program to connect with each other for the purposes of directly accessing files from one another's hard drives. (www. usr. com/education/broadbandglossary. asp)

Legal Basis The Betamax Decision - holds that copying technologies, such as P 2 P applications, are not inherently illegal if substantial non-infringing use can be made of them Grokster Decision - “Although file sharing tools can be used illegally, the file sharing software itself is not illegal, nor is the general activity of file sharing. ” P 2 P allows for the sharing of open source software, public domain files and out of copyright works The Napster Case - deliberately marketed as a medium for distributing audio files without permission from copyright holders

Vicarious Infringement Contributory infringement and vicarious liability are court-created theories (i. e. , not specified in the Copyright Act) designed to hold a company liable for its participation in unlawful copying. Would Duke be accused? n To be accused of vicarious infringement, the university must receive direct financial benefit. This would not be the case.

Effect on Music Industry Theoretical effect of file sharing on record sales and industry profits is ambiguous (Bakos et al, 1999) Participants could substitute downloads for legal purchases, but this is limited by the inferior sound quality and lack of features such as liner notes or cover art File sharing allows users to learn about music they would not otherwise be exposed to, promoting new sales (Shapiro and Varian, 1999) Does file sharing hurt CD sales?

The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales: An Empirical Analysis (Oberholzer-Gee and Strumpf, 2002) Dataset includes 0. 01% of the world’s downloads from the last third of 2002 Audio downloads of users in America were matched to a representative set of commercial albums, resulting in a database of over 10, 000 album-weeks Estimated effect of file sharing on sales is statistically indistinguishable from zero

The Bandwidth Issue P 2 P applications consistently use the same ports to send data, so P 2 P traffic can be efficiently capped to acceptable levels Uploading in P 2 P applications can be partially disabled

Academic P 2 P - Lionshare Developed by MIT, Penn State University and Simon Frasier University Users will not be anonymous, deterring the sharing of copyrighted material Can selectively share individual files with specific groups More and larger multimedia files are being used in the classroom setting. Transfer of these made much easier by P 2 P networks