Copyright and Peer-To-Peer Music File Sharing:

The 20th Century, people had their own music that they sang, played and passed from one generation to the next and that the idea of paying for music was perhaps just a passing fad.

The students in the class made the moral distinction between stealing from a tangible product from a shop and downloading music and movies which are (eventually) given away for free on the radio and TV.

Our class discussed whether downloading movies and songs is illegal as we pay for the software and the people supplying the software are really the ones to blame.

We watched Cocaine Jesus, an example of post-copyright film-making: it is so cheap and easy to do that you can give it away free.We also watched the short documentary film: 'Steal This Film 2'. Part Two examines the technological and cultural aspects of the copyright wars, and the implications of the internet for copying. It includes an exploration of Mark Getty's infamous statement that 'intellectual property is the oil of the 21st century'.

important notes from reading The Napster Case and the Argument Against Legislative Reform
[1] An MP3 file is a computer file that stores a song in a compressed format. A 32 Megabyte song on a CD can be compressed to about 3 Megabytes without noticeable reduction in quality. MP3 comes from MPEG audio Layer-3, and MPEG is the acronym for Moving Picture Experts Group, the group who developed the compression technology. <http://www.howstuffworks.com>.

[2] "...the digital environment poses a unique threat to the rights of copyright owners, and as such, necessitates protection against devices that undermine copyright interests. In contrast to the analog experience, digital technology enables pirates to reproduce and distribute perfect copies of works - at virtually no cost at all to the pirate. As technology advances, so must our laws." Report of the US House Comm. on Commerce, H.R. Rep. No. 105-551, pt. 2, at 25 (1998), cited in Markus Fallenb”ck, 'On the Technical Protection of Copyright: The Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the European Community Copyright Directive and Their Anticircumvention Provisions' (2003)7 International Journal of Communications Law and Policy 1.