Legal and Policy Challenges Posed by Peer to Peer File Sharing & P2P Technology

The recording industry has initiated many lawsuits against peer to peer file sharing technology developers and individual file sharers. They have also tried to persuade federal prosecutors to bring criminal cases against file sharers and technology developers and sought additional legislation to increase penalties for file sharing and to change dramatically the liability rules for developers of infringement-enabling technologies. For the past twenty years, since the Supreme Court's Sony Betamax decision, technologists have known technologies capable of substantial noninfringing uses could be developed free from copyright owner control, but this may soon change. This seminar will consider a range of policy alternatives available to respond to the challenges P2P technologies and file sharing pose for the entertainment industry and the implications of each alternative.