Peer to Peer Files Sharing: Cause and Solution - Essay Example

Notwithstanding the growth of the legal online digital market, the post P2P era has significantly dented CD sale profits, which was primary earner under the traditional distribution model. The main recourse for the music industry has been to adopt a knee jerk approach in prosecuting and penalising illegal file sharing. However, the music industry’s approach to copyright protection and wanting an outright ban on P2P file sharing has been criticised for going too far against public freedom and consumer protection.

Furthermore, critics of an absolute ban approach argue that such a measure ignores the wide applications of P2P file sharing in practice, some of which can be beneficial to the public. This paper critically evaluates peer to peer file sharing and suggests that whilst the need to protect the economic value of copyright should not be underestimated, a compromise needs to be reached to preserve public freedom. The rapid growth of the Internet, whilst facilitating growth opportunities on an even playing field through the new e-commerce business model, has challenged traditional legal concepts of copyright protection1.

This is further evidenced by the fact that legal compliance with copyright protection is impacted by provisions in the Berne Convention on Copyright2 in addition to national law. The Berne Convention grants reciprocal rights to nationals in signatory countries, which clearly has international ramifications for copyright protection within the online distribution model. For example, a US citizen enjoys the same protection under UK copyright law as if he was a UK citizen3. Accordingly, once a copyright work is created in the UK, it automatically has copyright protection in all other countries that are signatories to the Convention4.

This clearly has implications for online protection of copyright with the proliferation of the Internet and multifarious online uses involving copyrighted