Legality of File Sharing
The legal debate surrounding file sharing has caused many lawsuits. In the United States, some of these lawsuits have even reached the Supreme Court in MGM v. Grokster. In that particular lawsuit, the Supreme Court has ruled that the creators of P2P networks can be held responsible if the intent of their program is clearly to infringe on copyright laws.
On the other hand, file sharing is not necessarily illegal, even if the works being shared are covered by copyright. For example, some artists may choose to support freeware, shareware, open source, or anti-copyright, and advocate the use of file sharing as a free promotional tool. Nearly all freeware, and open source software may be shared, under the rules specified in the license for that specific piece of software. Content in the public domain can also be freely shared.
Read more about this topic: File Sharing
Famous quotes containing the words file and/or sharing:
“I have been a soreheaded occupant of a file drawer labeled “Science Fiction” ... and I would like out, particularly since so many serious critics regularly mistake the drawer for a urinal.”
—Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (b. 1922)
“We fight our way through the massed and leveled collective safe taste of the Top 40, just looking for a little something we can call our own. But when we find it and jam the radio to hear it again it isn’t just ours—it is a link to thousands of others who are sharing it with us. As a matter of a single song this might mean very little; as culture, as a way of life, you can’t beat it.”
—Greil Marcus (b. 1945)