Hi Guys

Napster's problem as a centralised legal person was compounded by its physical location in the USA. The American courts have always been more protectionist in defending the rights of entrenched suppliers. In more open societies where the enforcement of the law more closely follows the prevailing cultural trends, judges wait to see whether changes have undesirable social consequences before acting arbitrarily to suppress novelty. It is sadly amusing to watch the hypocrisy of American judges in arbitrarily accepting and rejecting identical causation arguments when applied to the supply of liquor, guns and the means of exchanging data. But policy-making judges have never been afraid of taking purely political decisions to protect the commercial interests of those who have access to power in that state. And, in America where the appointment of judges is a highly politicised process, the inherent risk of bias is greatly increased.

So trap_jaw is correct. The means of file exchange is not itelf a breach of copyright. There is a massive rump of works out of copyright (50 years is a good yardstick figure for the ending of protection) and these works can all be exchanged lawfully. Almost all states also permit limited categories of copying for private or educational purposes. So when I put a copyright protected work that I purchased into my Shared file and you download it, you are breaking the copyright because you have freeloaded and not paid the artist and his or her commercial distributor for their time, labour and capital investment in the creation and promotion of that work. Yet the more recent development in the USA is for the major music players to threaten large companies and educational sites with infringement proceedings because they are allowing file exchange on their machines. It is only a matter of time before your school, university or employer shuts down access to Gnutella out of fear of legal action. How long will it be before some poor employee is fired as an example to deter the others or schools and universities take disciplinary action against individual students?

You should all take an interest in this issue. Balancing the freedoms and interests of individuals, artists and big businesses affects us all in our everyday lives.