- Ding-Wen Chen (DW)
- Xin Cui (Ava)
- Nan-Hsiang Hung (Shawn)
- Jun Kim
- Ramjit Ladhar
- Baodong Li (Joseph)
- Victor Papkov
- Keigo Shiozaki
- Chong Sun (Stewart)
- Zhen Sun (Sun)
- Wendi Xi (Dean)
- Zifang Zhoi (Fiona)
Ding-Wen Chen (DW)
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On January 1, 1983 Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) was written by
Cerf on the back of an envelope over lunch. Since then TCP/IP has become the
standard protocol of the Internet, to disseminate information in a glance. On
account of extreme traffic of exchanging information on the Internet, information
is formatted as many different media such as MPEG I or RealMedia (RM) in order
to be transmitted more effectively. Mp3, one of the music file formats on the
internet, gives the internet users an opportunity to share the music without
boundaries. As a result of the popularity of the mp3, mp3 sharing communities
and sharing community software have been developed and is being provided
without any fees. However, this mp3 sharing software has resulted in the tort
of copyrights. The tort of copyrights is defined as using, selling, or handing
over without the authorization by the original publisher or publication organization.
The tort of copyrights can be divided into two parts, the operation of the software
and the software users’ usages.
The first part is the operation of the software. The processes of the operation are shown in the
flowchart below.
From the flowchart, we can see that technically the software itself has no copyrights problem; on the other hand, if the users are sharing the mp3 files which are published by other companies or people, the software has violated the copyrights on the circulation of the music without permission from the original publication organization. In other words, the software encourages users to engage in the illegal activities so that the software itself is the legal problem.
The second part of the tort is the software users. Once the users install the sharing software, the media files in the users’ computers will be searched and an index will be built in the sharing server. Therefore, users can check and download the mp3 files just by name, type, or artist. The problem here is when the users download the mp3 files from the sharing server, the files are actually from another user’s computer. This will constitute a situation where the music listener has not used the music only for himself or herself. Otherwise, the users won’t violate the copyrights about the personal use rule, which is that the music file can be converted into another form for personal use.
All in all, the mp3 music format, the sharing software, and the users create a new culture of sharing information with two very valuable concepts on the internet: the free information concept and the sharing information concept. Still, the activities are illegal. In my opinion, when the music industry puts in a lot of money to accuse the sharing software such as Napstar, Kuro, and WinMX, they should think more about how to produce better music, which has a better price/quality ratio.
August 2002