In reading and looking over my fellow classmates current events websites I found that a reoccurring topic was that of file sharing especially in dealing with universities and young people. This generation is obsessed with file sharing and as technology development grows, the ability to participate in the illegal act of piracy is increasing as well. Like we talked about in class, 10 years ago colleges and university were some of the only places with Internet connections fast and big enough to allow for the downloading of material from the web. This launched students into the whirlwind that is P2P file sharing, illegal downloads, and torrent files. This wasn't such a big deal back then, but now that it has become such a common practice all around the world, the government is looking for a way to fight back.
Maddy reviewed an article entitled "LimeWire Now Found on One-Third of All PCs Worldwide." This article does a great job of showing exactly how big the file sharing community has become. It is no longer just college students sharing with their friends. It has become a worldwide explosion. Like the title states, now one third of all PC's in the world have LimeWire on them and that is just one of the many types of file sharing software available. LimeWire is considered the iTunes of P2P. The growth has actually been modest the past few years and now we are forced to ask why. Does it have something to do with the pressure government lawsuits have been putting on people? Maybe.
That leads us into the next article. What is the government doing about these infringements? They are trying their best to fight back that is for sure. Ome's article is on the House's attempt to stop this file-sharing ordeal. The article is entitled, "House Tries to Curb File Sharing" and is on how there has been an amendment to the Higher Education Act in order to reduce illegal file sharing on college campuses. University must make it public what there policies are on illegal file sharing and to find new alternative technologies that would reduce illegal downloading. Penn University has already jumped into fulfilling some amendment requirements, but they find some of the other request undoable. For example, they would have a hard time implementing a filtering program that would prevent any kind of illegal downloading. They are however taking a stab at subscription-based services like Ruckus. Penn is urging the House to go with last springs Senate version of the amendment that only requires universities to educate about file sharing. On the flip side of this though, the numbers that were used in making all of these choices ended up being false. The losses due to illegal downloading by college student is only near 18% instead of the MPAA's reported 44%. All of this will be taken into account when the final decision on the Higher Education Act is passes. This shows that the government will not take the infringements for file sharing in stride. They are trying their best to keep up even though they seem to be fighting an uphill battle. They has been trying to crack down on specific infringers with highÑpriced court cases in hope of scaring people into obeying the law, but is all of this really doing any good?
In a way it is, but in another way it is feeding the fire of those ready to fight back. Emily reviewed an article entitled, "File-Sharing Students Fight Copyright Constraints." This article is about students at these universities, where restrictions are being implicated, fighting back. Most students like Zachary McCune in the article seem oblivious to consequences coming from the illegal downloading of material. McCune found the fines he faces grossly out of proportion. He stated, "I was stunned by the extremity of the punishment for taking songs I could have bought for a few cents." While McCune settlement was $3000, he took this experience as a spark to his interest in changing intellectual property regulations. He became the co-founder of Students for Free Culture, which has become a national organization on many college campuses who main goal is to advocate the restrictions of copyright law so that "information" can be freely shared. This organization is slowly growing comparing it to the fight against the draft back in the 60s. Students are not letting the power the government has over material stop them. They are rallying a bigger and bigger fight every year.
So as these articles show the file-sharing revolution is still going strong. The government is aware of the reproductions this could have and are doing these best to respond in the best way they can, but they might be surprised to find that generation X's counter-response may be just as loud. Only time will tell where this issue will go. As weÕve been learning about in class, intellectual property law is a very grey area that is speckled with exceptions. It is important to deal with, however. Technology development has been too fast for law to keep up with and that is where we are right now and all we can do is watch the race.
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