File Sharing of Copyrighted Work Do you do it? Is it the right thing to do? Can it be stopped?

A Growing Audience Traffic on peer-to-peer networks has nearly doubled since 2002 Average simultaneous worldwide P2P users 2002: 4.9 million 2007: 9.4 million source: BigChampagne

CD Sales Plummeting CD sales down by 20% from March Wall Street Journal lists a number of factors contributing, including file sharing. slashdot.org, March 22,

Has File Sharing Hurt Music Sales? It depends on whom you ask. Some economists say no. Oberholzer-Gee, Koleman Strumpf. The Journal of Political Economy, Some economists say yes. Liebowitz, Stan J. “Economists Examine File-Sharing and Music Sales”. The Industrial Organization of Digital Goods and Electronic Markets, 2005.

Other possible factors in declining music sales 800 fewer retail outlets (Tower Records' demise alone closed 89) increasingly negative attitude towards CD sales from big-box retailers (Best Buy now dedicates less floor space to CDs in favor of better-selling items) Wall Street Journal, “Sales of Music, Long in Decline, Plunge Sharply”, March 21, 2007.

Other factors for lower sales(continued) Music sales may have been artificially inflated to begin with. People replaced LPs and cassettes with CDs. When they completed this task, sales stabilized. Movie sales actually up. slyck.com, March 6,

Is downloading the same as stealing? Stealing implies that someone has been deprived of property Here, it’s not clear if that is always the case People who download often wouldn’t have bought the music anyway.

Record Companies file lawsuits. Not suing organized criminals but ordinary people. The defendants can’t afford to defend themselves, so almost all the cases settle, usually for around $4000. Boston Globe, March 8, 2007.

The record companies claim to “win” the lawsuits. But do they really? Illegal downloading is still rampant 80 million tunes were legally downloaded last December, but illegal downloads were nearly six times higher at 466 million songs. Boston Globe, March 8, 2007.

Are the lawsuits effective at decreasing piracy? Record companies say they have stabilized the problem, that illegal downloading is no longer “growing exponentially” Boston Globe, March 8, 2007.

Are lawsuits effective? (continued) Number of households illegally downloading music is down. NPD Group as cited in the Boston Globe, March 8, But those who are left are downloading more.

Should content owners be spending their money on something else? Lawsuits cost much more than record companies recover. Record companies could probably find a way to make money embracing the technology

New technology New technology allows ads to be embedded in media files unobtrusively When a user downloads a file, an ad pops up asking if the user would be willing to view an ad in exchange for owning a legal copy of the music.

Would you view an ad in exchange for a legal copy? The company marketing the technology claims that 60% of users are willing to view the ad Business 2.0,2 “Peer-to-Peer Music Goes Legit with Pop-Up Ads”, April 2007.

Why view an ad if you don’t have to? People don’t really want to rip anyone off; they just want music for free People don’t really want to rip anyone off. They just want music for free. They would view the ad just because they might as well.

Other ways for content owners to embrace file sharing Flat-fee all-you-can-download services Other ways?

Lawsuits may be counterproductive If people view the copyrighted owners as the bad guys, they are less likely to care about the anti-piracy cause.

Nobody likes the RIAA Voted “Worst company in America” by consumerist.com, narrowly beating out Halliburton. wins-worst-company-in-america php Making everyone hate you certainly couldn’t help the cause to stop illegal downloading

Do the record companies and others go to far? A company suing Apple, Microsoft, and RealNetworks for failing to implement Digital Rights Management technology. news.com, May 11, ver+media+players/ _ html ver+media+players/ _ html

Too Far (continued)? Digital Millenium Copyright Act makes it illegal “descramble a scrambled work, to decrypt an encrypted work, or otherwise to avoid, bypass, remove, deactivate or impair a technological measure, without the authority of the copyright owner.”

File Sharing sites are defiant piratebay.org’s legal threats section Can they ever be stopped?