Legal issues with BitTorrent
Encyclopedia
The BitTorrent protocol's wide use for copyright infringement
has led to legal issues with BitTorrent. The technology itself is perfectly legal, but it has been debated if its implementation in connection with copyrighted material or otherwise illegal material makes the issuer of the BitTorrent file, as opposed to the copyrighted material itself, liable as an accomplice or an infringing party. A BitTorrent file can be seen as a hyperlink
or very specific instruction of how to obtain something on the internet, including illegal or copyrighted content. The degree of illegality varies, but, in general, court decisions in various nations deem it illegal. Due to the nature of the internet, it is possible to host the BitTorrent file in areas where it is not illegal - making it more an issue if ISPs can provide access there and if anyone can access that file (or the illegal content), which again would vary by jurisdictions.
s have been subjected to raids and shutdowns due to claims of copyright infringement. BitTorrent metafiles
do not store copyrighted data, so it has been claimed that BitTorrent trackers, which only store and track the metafiles, must therefore be legal even if sharing the data in question would be considered a violation of copyright. Despite this claim, there has been tremendous legal pressure, usually on behalf of the MPAA and RIAA and similar organizations around the world, to shut down numerous BitTorrent trackers.
In December 2004, the Finnish
police raided a major BitTorrent site, Finreactor. Seven system administrator
s and four others were ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of euro
s in damages
. The defendants appeal
ed the case all the way to the Supreme Court of Finland
, but did not succeed in getting the verdict overturned. Two other defendants were acquitted by reason of being underage at the time, but they are being held liable for legal fees and compensation for illegal distribution ranging up to 60,000 euros. The court set their fine at 10% of the retail price of products distributed.
Suprnova.org
, one of the most popular early BitTorrent sites, closed in December 2004, purportedly due to the pressure felt by Sloncek
, the founder and administrator of the site. In December 2004, Sloncek revealed that the Suprnova computer servers had in fact been confiscated by Slovenian authorities.
LokiTorrent
closed down soon after Suprnova. Allegedly, after threats from the MPAA, Edward Webber (known as 'lowkee'), webmaster of the site, was ordered by the court to pay a fine and supply the MPAA with logs (the IP address
es of visitors). Webber, in the weeks following his receipt of the subpoena
, began a fundraising campaign to pay legal fees in a legal battle against the MPAA. Webber raised approximately US$45,000 through a PayPal
-based donation system. Following the agreement, the MPAA changed the LokiTorrent website to display a message intended to discourage filesharers from downloading illegal content. Webber did not comment on this change.
On May 25, 2005, the popular BitTorrent website EliteTorrents.org was shut down by the United States
Federal Bureau of Investigation
and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At first it was thought that a malicious hacker had gained control of the website, but it was soon discovered that the website had been taken over by the US government. Ten search warrants relating to members of the website were executed. Six admins of the EliteTorrents.org website pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and criminal copyright infringement of a pre-commercial release work. Punishments handed out included jail time, house arrest, and fines. Jail time could be passed down because, unlike many other file sharing cases involving individuals, criminal law (not just civil law) was involved - specifically, the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act
.
On October 24, 2005, a 38-year-old Hong Kong BitTorrent user Chan Nai-ming
(陳乃明), using the handle 古惑天皇 Lit. The master of cunning, (the magistrate
referred to him as Big Crook) allegedly distributed the three movies Daredevil
, Red Planet
and Miss Congeniality in violation of copyright, subsequently uploading the torrent file to a newsgroup. He was convicted of breaching the copyright
ordinance, Chapter 528 of Hong Kong
law. The magistrate
remarked that Chan's act caused significant damage to the interest of copyright holders. He was released on bail for HK$5,000, awaiting a sentencing hearing, though the magistrate himself admitted the difficulty of determining how he should be sentenced due to the lack of precedent for such a case. On November 7, 2005, he was sentenced to jail for three months but was immediately granted bail pending an appeal to the High Court. The appeal was dismissed by the Court of First Instance on 12 December 2006 and Chan was jailed immediately. On 3 January 2007, he was bailed pending appeal to the Court of Final Appeal on 9 May 2007.
In June 2006, the popular website Newnova.org, an exact replicate of Supernova, was also subject to closure.
The Pirate Bay
torrent website, formed by a Swedish anti-copyright group, is notorious for the "legal" section of its website in which letters and replies on the subject of alleged copyright infringements are publicly displayed. On May 31, 2006, The Pirate Bay's servers in Sweden were raided by Swedish police on allegations by the MPAA of copyright infringement. The Pirate Bay was back online in less than 72 hours, and returned to Sweden, accompanied by public and media backlash against the Swedish Government's actions. A film, Steal This Film
(Stockholm, Summer 2006), relating to these incidents has been produced. On April 17, 2009, as a result of the trial following the 2006 raid, the site's four owners were sentenced to one year of jail time each and to collectively pay 30 million SEK
in damages to rights owners. All the defendants have appealed, and the sentences have been suspended pending the appeal.
On May 29, 2007, A federal judge ordered TorrentSpy, a torrent website, to begin monitoring its users' activities and to submit these logs to the Motion Picture Association of America. TorrentSpy's attorney, Ira Rothken, has stated that TorrentSpy would likely turn off access to U.S. users before it started monitoring anyone, since such monitoring is in violation of TorrentSpy's own privacy policy.
HBO, in an effort to combat the distribution of its programming on BitTorrent networks, has sent cease and desist
letters to the Internet Service Providers of BitTorrent users. Many users have reported receiving letters from their ISP's that threatened to cut off their internet service if the alleged infringement continues. HBO, unlike the RIAA, has not been reported to have filed suit against anyone for sharing files as of April 2007. On the other hand, in 2005 HBO began "poisoning" torrents of its show Rome
, by providing bad chunks of data to clients.
In Singapore, anime distributor Odex
, has been actively tracking down and sending legal threats
against Internet
users in Singapore since 2007. These Internet users have allegedly downloaded fansub
bed anime via the BitTorrent network. Court orders on ISP
s to reveal subscribers' personal information have been ruled in Odex's favor, leading to several downloaders receiving letters of legal threat from Odex and subsequently pursuing out-of-court settlements for at least S$
3,000 (US$2,000) per person, the youngest person being only 9 years old. These actions were considered controversial by the local anime community and have attracted criticisms towards the company, as they are seen by fans as heavy-handed.
A woman and a man were caught illegally uploading with BT in September 2008 and April 2009 respectively in Hong Kong. They are the second and third person caught in the city.
Beginning in early 2010, the US Copyright Group
, acting on behalf of several independent movie makers, has obtained the IP addresses of BitTorrent users allegedly downloading specific movies. The group then sued these users, in order to obtain subpoenas forcing ISPs to reveal the users' true identities. The group then sent out settlement offers in the $1,000-$3,000 range. About 16,200 lawsuits were filed between March and September 2010.
In 2011, United States courts began determining the legality of suits brought against hundreds or thousands of BitTorrent users simultaneously, with a suit against 5,000 IP addresses being dismissed, as well as smaller suits such as Pacific Century International, Ltd. v. Does
that dismissed cases against over 100 IP addresses tied to disseminating copyrighted works.
and BitTorrent Inc.
CEO Bram Cohen
, signed a deal they hoped would reduce the number of unlicensed copies available through the BitTorrent.com search engine ran by BitTorrent, Inc. It meant BitTorrent.com had to remove any links to unlicensed copies of films made by seven of Hollywood's major movie studios. As it covered only the BitTorrent.com website, it is unclear what overall effect this has had on copyright infringement.
A number of other notable search engines have also voluntarily self-censored restrictively licensed content from their results, or have become "content distribution"-only search engines. In the case of Mininova
, it announced that it would only allow for freely licensed content (especially free content
distributed by its author under a Creative Commons license
) to be indexed after November 2009, resulting in the immediate removal of a majority portion of Mininova's search returns from view or use.
Copyright infringement
Copyright infringement is the unauthorized or prohibited use of works under copyright, infringing the copyright holder's exclusive rights, such as the right to reproduce or perform the copyrighted work, or to make derivative works.- "Piracy" :...
has led to legal issues with BitTorrent. The technology itself is perfectly legal, but it has been debated if its implementation in connection with copyrighted material or otherwise illegal material makes the issuer of the BitTorrent file, as opposed to the copyrighted material itself, liable as an accomplice or an infringing party. A BitTorrent file can be seen as a hyperlink
Hyperlink
In computing, a hyperlink is a reference to data that the reader can directly follow, or that is followed automatically. A hyperlink points to a whole document or to a specific element within a document. Hypertext is text with hyperlinks...
or very specific instruction of how to obtain something on the internet, including illegal or copyrighted content. The degree of illegality varies, but, in general, court decisions in various nations deem it illegal. Due to the nature of the internet, it is possible to host the BitTorrent file in areas where it is not illegal - making it more an issue if ISPs can provide access there and if anyone can access that file (or the illegal content), which again would vary by jurisdictions.
Copyright enforcement
BitTorrent trackerBitTorrent tracker
A BitTorrent tracker is a server that assists in the communication between peers using the BitTorrent protocol. It is also, in the absence of extensions to the original protocol, the only major critical point, as clients are required to communicate with the tracker to initiate downloads...
s have been subjected to raids and shutdowns due to claims of copyright infringement. BitTorrent metafiles
Torrent file
A torrent file stores metadata used for BitTorrent. It is defined in the BitTorrent specification.Simply, a torrent is data about a target file, though it contains no information about the content of the file. The only data that the torrent holds is information about the location of different...
do not store copyrighted data, so it has been claimed that BitTorrent trackers, which only store and track the metafiles, must therefore be legal even if sharing the data in question would be considered a violation of copyright. Despite this claim, there has been tremendous legal pressure, usually on behalf of the MPAA and RIAA and similar organizations around the world, to shut down numerous BitTorrent trackers.
In December 2004, the Finnish
Finland
Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...
police raided a major BitTorrent site, Finreactor. Seven system administrator
System administrator
A system administrator, IT systems administrator, systems administrator, or sysadmin is a person employed to maintain and operate a computer system and/or network...
s and four others were ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of euro
Euro
The euro is the official currency of the eurozone: 17 of the 27 member states of the European Union. It is also the currency used by the Institutions of the European Union. The eurozone consists of Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg,...
s in damages
Damages
In law, damages is an award, typically of money, to be paid to a person as compensation for loss or injury; grammatically, it is a singular noun, not plural.- Compensatory damages :...
. The defendants appeal
Appeal
An appeal is a petition for review of a case that has been decided by a court of law. The petition is made to a higher court for the purpose of overturning the lower court's decision....
ed the case all the way to the Supreme Court of Finland
Supreme Court of Finland
The Supreme Court of Finland , located in Helsinki, consists of a President and at minimum 15, currently 18 other Justices, usually working in five-judge panels...
, but did not succeed in getting the verdict overturned. Two other defendants were acquitted by reason of being underage at the time, but they are being held liable for legal fees and compensation for illegal distribution ranging up to 60,000 euros. The court set their fine at 10% of the retail price of products distributed.
Suprnova.org
Suprnova.org
Suprnova.org was a Slovenia-based website which distributed torrents for various music and video files, computer programs and games. Started in late 2002 by Andrej Preston and for a while considered the most popular BitTorrent search engine, Suprnova.org closed in late 2004 after legal threats...
, one of the most popular early BitTorrent sites, closed in December 2004, purportedly due to the pressure felt by Sloncek
Sloncek
Andrej Preston , also known under the pseudonym ' , is the founder of the former BitTorrent site Suprnova.org....
, the founder and administrator of the site. In December 2004, Sloncek revealed that the Suprnova computer servers had in fact been confiscated by Slovenian authorities.
LokiTorrent
LokiTorrent
LokiTorrent was a BitTorrent indexing service operated by Edward Webber from 2004 until 2005. The domain name was originally registered on 24 February 2004....
closed down soon after Suprnova. Allegedly, after threats from the MPAA, Edward Webber (known as 'lowkee'), webmaster of the site, was ordered by the court to pay a fine and supply the MPAA with logs (the IP address
IP address
An Internet Protocol address is a numerical label assigned to each device participating in a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. An IP address serves two principal functions: host or network interface identification and location addressing...
es of visitors). Webber, in the weeks following his receipt of the subpoena
Subpoena
A subpoena is a writ by a government agency, most often a court, that has authority to compel testimony by a witness or production of evidence under a penalty for failure. There are two common types of subpoena:...
, began a fundraising campaign to pay legal fees in a legal battle against the MPAA. Webber raised approximately US$45,000 through a PayPal
PayPal
PayPal is an American-based global e-commerce business allowing payments and money transfers to be made through the Internet. Online money transfers serve as electronic alternatives to paying with traditional paper methods, such as checks and money orders....
-based donation system. Following the agreement, the MPAA changed the LokiTorrent website to display a message intended to discourage filesharers from downloading illegal content. Webber did not comment on this change.
On May 25, 2005, the popular BitTorrent website EliteTorrents.org was shut down by the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
Federal Bureau of Investigation
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At first it was thought that a malicious hacker had gained control of the website, but it was soon discovered that the website had been taken over by the US government. Ten search warrants relating to members of the website were executed. Six admins of the EliteTorrents.org website pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and criminal copyright infringement of a pre-commercial release work. Punishments handed out included jail time, house arrest, and fines. Jail time could be passed down because, unlike many other file sharing cases involving individuals, criminal law (not just civil law) was involved - specifically, the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act
Family Entertainment and Copyright Act
The Family Entertainment and Copyright Act is a federal legislative act regarding copyright that became law in the United States in 2005. The Act consists of two subparts: the Artist's Rights and Theft Prevention Act of 2005, which increases penalties for copyright infringement, and the Family...
.
On October 24, 2005, a 38-year-old Hong Kong BitTorrent user Chan Nai-ming
Chan Nai-ming
Chan Nai-Ming is a Hong Kong citizen, believed to be the first person in the world convicted of the crime of illegal mass distribution of copyrighted works using BitTorrent Peer-to-peer file sharing...
(陳乃明), using the handle 古惑天皇 Lit. The master of cunning, (the magistrate
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...
referred to him as Big Crook) allegedly distributed the three movies Daredevil
Daredevil (film)
Daredevil is a 2003 American superhero film written and directed by Mark Steven Johnson. Based on the Marvel Comics character of the same name, the film stars Ben Affleck as Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer who fights for justice in the courtroom and out of the courtroom as the masked vigilante Daredevil...
, Red Planet
Red Planet (film)
Red Planet is a 2000 Technicolor science fiction film directed by Antony Hoffman, starring Val Kilmer and Carrie-Anne Moss. It was released on November 10, 2000.-Plot:...
and Miss Congeniality in violation of copyright, subsequently uploading the torrent file to a newsgroup. He was convicted of breaching the copyright
Copyright
Copyright is a legal concept, enacted by most governments, giving the creator of an original work exclusive rights to it, usually for a limited time...
ordinance, Chapter 528 of Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
law. The magistrate
Magistrate
A magistrate is an officer of the state; in modern usage the term usually refers to a judge or prosecutor. This was not always the case; in ancient Rome, a magistratus was one of the highest government officers and possessed both judicial and executive powers. Today, in common law systems, a...
remarked that Chan's act caused significant damage to the interest of copyright holders. He was released on bail for HK$5,000, awaiting a sentencing hearing, though the magistrate himself admitted the difficulty of determining how he should be sentenced due to the lack of precedent for such a case. On November 7, 2005, he was sentenced to jail for three months but was immediately granted bail pending an appeal to the High Court. The appeal was dismissed by the Court of First Instance on 12 December 2006 and Chan was jailed immediately. On 3 January 2007, he was bailed pending appeal to the Court of Final Appeal on 9 May 2007.
In June 2006, the popular website Newnova.org, an exact replicate of Supernova, was also subject to closure.
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay
The Pirate Bay is a Swedish website which hosts magnet links and .torrent files, which allow users to share electronic files, including multimedia, computer games and software via BitTorrent...
torrent website, formed by a Swedish anti-copyright group, is notorious for the "legal" section of its website in which letters and replies on the subject of alleged copyright infringements are publicly displayed. On May 31, 2006, The Pirate Bay's servers in Sweden were raided by Swedish police on allegations by the MPAA of copyright infringement. The Pirate Bay was back online in less than 72 hours, and returned to Sweden, accompanied by public and media backlash against the Swedish Government's actions. A film, Steal This Film
Steal This Film
Steal This Film is a film series documenting the movement against intellectual property produced by The League of Noble Peers and released via the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol....
(Stockholm, Summer 2006), relating to these incidents has been produced. On April 17, 2009, as a result of the trial following the 2006 raid, the site's four owners were sentenced to one year of jail time each and to collectively pay 30 million SEK
Swedish krona
The krona has been the currency of Sweden since 1873. Both the ISO code "SEK" and currency sign "kr" are in common use; the former precedes or follows the value, the latter usually follows it, but especially in the past, it sometimes preceded the value...
in damages to rights owners. All the defendants have appealed, and the sentences have been suspended pending the appeal.
On May 29, 2007, A federal judge ordered TorrentSpy, a torrent website, to begin monitoring its users' activities and to submit these logs to the Motion Picture Association of America. TorrentSpy's attorney, Ira Rothken, has stated that TorrentSpy would likely turn off access to U.S. users before it started monitoring anyone, since such monitoring is in violation of TorrentSpy's own privacy policy.
HBO, in an effort to combat the distribution of its programming on BitTorrent networks, has sent cease and desist
Cease and desist
A cease and desist is an order or request to halt an activity and not to take it up again later or else face legal action. The recipient of the cease-and-desist may be an individual or an organization....
letters to the Internet Service Providers of BitTorrent users. Many users have reported receiving letters from their ISP's that threatened to cut off their internet service if the alleged infringement continues. HBO, unlike the RIAA, has not been reported to have filed suit against anyone for sharing files as of April 2007. On the other hand, in 2005 HBO began "poisoning" torrents of its show Rome
Rome (TV series)
Rome is a British-American–Italian historical drama television series created by Bruno Heller, John Milius and William J. MacDonald. The show's two seasons premiered in 2005 and 2007, and were later released on DVD. Rome is set in the 1st century BC, during Ancient Rome's transition from Republic...
, by providing bad chunks of data to clients.
In Singapore, anime distributor Odex
Odex
Odex Pte. Ltd. is a Singapore-based company that licenses and releases anime for local and regional Southeast Asian consumption. It was registered in 1998 to license, import and release overseas drama and animation into Singapore. It began distribution in 2000...
, has been actively tracking down and sending legal threats
Odex's actions against file-sharing
Odex's actions against file sharing were legal actions against Internet Service Providers and their subscribers in Singapore by Odex, a Singaporean-based company that virtually distributes sub-licensed Japanese anime...
against Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
users in Singapore since 2007. These Internet users have allegedly downloaded fansub
Fansub
A fansub is a version of a foreign film or foreign television program which has been translated by fans and subtitled into a language other than that of the original.-History:...
bed anime via the BitTorrent network. Court orders on ISP
Internet service provider
An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...
s to reveal subscribers' personal information have been ruled in Odex's favor, leading to several downloaders receiving letters of legal threat from Odex and subsequently pursuing out-of-court settlements for at least S$
Singapore dollar
The Singapore dollar or Dollar is the official currency of Singapore. It is normally abbreviated with the dollar sign $, or alternatively S$ to distinguish it from other dollar-denominated currencies...
3,000 (US$2,000) per person, the youngest person being only 9 years old. These actions were considered controversial by the local anime community and have attracted criticisms towards the company, as they are seen by fans as heavy-handed.
A woman and a man were caught illegally uploading with BT in September 2008 and April 2009 respectively in Hong Kong. They are the second and third person caught in the city.
Beginning in early 2010, the US Copyright Group
US Copyright Group
The US Copyright Group is a business registered by the law firm Dunlap, Grubb & Weaver that also operates under the SaveCinema.org moniker. It is engaged in suing people in the U.S...
, acting on behalf of several independent movie makers, has obtained the IP addresses of BitTorrent users allegedly downloading specific movies. The group then sued these users, in order to obtain subpoenas forcing ISPs to reveal the users' true identities. The group then sent out settlement offers in the $1,000-$3,000 range. About 16,200 lawsuits were filed between March and September 2010.
In 2011, United States courts began determining the legality of suits brought against hundreds or thousands of BitTorrent users simultaneously, with a suit against 5,000 IP addresses being dismissed, as well as smaller suits such as Pacific Century International, Ltd. v. Does
Pacific Century International, Ltd. v. Does
Pacific Century International, Ltd. v. Does 1-101 is a court case where Pacific Century International requested to subpoena the names and identities of 101 BitTorrent users whose IP Addresses were tied to downloading one of their copyrighted works...
that dismissed cases against over 100 IP addresses tied to disseminating copyrighted works.
Settlements
On November 23, 2005, the Motion Picture Association of AmericaMotion Picture Association of America
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. , originally the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America , was founded in 1922 and is designed to advance the business interests of its members...
and BitTorrent Inc.
BitTorrent Inc.
BitTorrent, Inc., headquartered in San Francisco, California, is a privately held American company that is responsible for the ongoing development of the BitTorrent peer-to-peer protocol, as well as the ongoing development of µTorrent and BitTorrent Mainline, two clients for that protocol.Today,...
CEO Bram Cohen
Bram Cohen
Bram Cohen is an American computer programmer, best known as the author of the peer-to-peer BitTorrent protocol, as well as the first file sharing program to use the protocol, also known as BitTorrent...
, signed a deal they hoped would reduce the number of unlicensed copies available through the BitTorrent.com search engine ran by BitTorrent, Inc. It meant BitTorrent.com had to remove any links to unlicensed copies of films made by seven of Hollywood's major movie studios. As it covered only the BitTorrent.com website, it is unclear what overall effect this has had on copyright infringement.
A number of other notable search engines have also voluntarily self-censored restrictively licensed content from their results, or have become "content distribution"-only search engines. In the case of Mininova
Mininova
Mininova is a website offering BitTorrent downloads. Mininova was once one of the largest sites offering torrents of copyrighted material, but in November 2009, following legal action in the Dutch courts, the site operators deleted all torrent files uploaded by regular users including torrents that...
, it announced that it would only allow for freely licensed content (especially free content
Free content
Free content, or free information, is any kind of functional work, artwork, or other creative content that meets the definition of a free cultural work...
distributed by its author under a Creative Commons license
Creative Commons License
Creative Commons licenses are several copyright licenses that allow the distribution of copyrighted works. The licenses differ by several combinations that condition the terms of distribution. They were initially released on December 16, 2002 by Creative Commons, a U.S...
) to be indexed after November 2009, resulting in the immediate removal of a majority portion of Mininova's search returns from view or use.
Patent infringement
In June 2011, Tranz-Send Broadcasting Network filed a lawsuit at a U.S. District Court against BitTorrent Inc. for infringing a patent applied for in April 1999.See also
- BitTorrent
- File sharingFile sharingFile sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digitally stored information, such as computer programs, multimedia , documents, or electronic books. It may be implemented through a variety of ways...
- File sharing and the lawFile sharing and the lawThe legal issues in file sharing involve violation of copyright laws as digital copies of copyrighted materials are transferred between users.The application of national copyright laws to peer-to-peer and file sharing networks is of global significance...
- Torrent poisoningTorrent poisoningTorrent poisoning is the act of intentionally sharing corrupt data or data with misleading file names using the BitTorrent protocol. This practice of uploading fake torrents is sometimes carried out by anti-piracy organisations as an attempt to prevent the peer-to-peer sharing of copyrighted...
External links
- Michal Czerniawski, Responsibility of BitTorrent Search Engines for Copyright Infringements, at SSRN (December 2009)