File Sharing Websites

The Legality of File Sharing Websites

Ever since the whole Napster fiasco, there’s been a lot of debate and confusion regarding file sharing websites and peer to peer file trading services and programs.

Even though Napster was held accountable for thousands upon thousands of charges of copyright infringement for allowing its users to illegally trade copyright protected content, today we see programs like Limewire and Bearshare and several others being used by more users than Napster ever dreamed of having. Not to mention that these users are trading files at a much faster rate thanks to the rising popularity of broadband and cable modems.

The funny thing is, none of these websites or services are being shut down. Napster was shut down hard, and even after being shut down, the owners of Napster were then forced to pay some pretty steep fines to various record companies and artists. Shawn Fanning, the guy who invented Napster, was basically sitting on top of the world one year, appearing on the cover of the popular tech magazine WIRED, making tons of money, and becoming a sort of celebrity. The next thing you know, he was slapped with some pretty serious charges, after Napster had only been in business for a couple of years.

So how is it that the guys behind Limewire and Bearshare stay in business, even though what they’re doing is pretty much exactly the same thing Shawn Fanning did?

Simple, it’s one hundred percent within the law.

File sharing is not illegal, nor is peer to peer trading via the internet.

What’s actually illegal is copyright infringement.

Because there’s nothing illegal about the basic function of Limewire and Bearshare, they have managed to avoid being charged with the same kind of copyright violations as Shawn Fanning dealt with.

So then, if it’s not illegal, then why did Shawn Fanning get hit? There are a couple of reasons for that.

1- Napster did not distance itself from copyright violation

Shawn Fanning actually went on the record claiming that the illegal file sharing going on through his program could be helpful. Many saw this as an endorsement. That, plus the fact that Napster never came with a disclaimer telling users not to use it for pirating, it looked like Napster was actually endorsing piracy, where Limewire and Bearshare are politically unaligned in this regard, only being offered as software, with no pirating agenda in mind.

2- The recording industry was scared

Many people feel that the record companies and artists went a little too far with everything that occurred surrounding Napster. Not only did Napster get hit pretty hard, but some of their users, mere teenagers, wound up facing enormous fines for copyright infringement. Let’s face it, the record industry was scared for a number of reasons. First and most obviously, they didn’t want their record sales going down, and, while some of the piracy-related losses claimed by the MPAA and various recording companies have been proven to have been wildly exaggerated, it’s undeniable that piracy does cut into legitimate sales.

Secondly, they simply had less control over what kind of content was getting out there. Napster served as a sort of every-genre radio station for many. People were discovering new bands that they’d never heard of, and switching over from buying say, Britney Spears and N Sync, to buying albums by lesser known groups like Radiohead. Case in point, Radiohead had never seen a top twenty hit throughout their entire career… until Napster turned one of their then-unreleased songs into a huge college radio hit. Their next album sold in record breaking numbers. This kind of thing makes the market a little more unpredictable than record companies are usually comfortable with, as they can pump millions of dollars in marketing into say, the next Christina Aguilera album, but it might not make that money back if people know there’s something else out there, and choose to support that instead. This of course does not justify internet piracy, but many believe that it was a big part of what motivated the record industry to make a public example of Napster.

Certainly, it was in the best interests of the record companies and mainstream artists to put a stop to internet based piracy, and the best they could hope to do was to hit Napster as hard as they could and let the general public know that yes, copyright infringement on the internet is illegal, and there are harsh penalties.

It hasn’t really changed anything, though. As long as there is an internet, somebody will be using it to trade ill gotten goods.