Kazaa is a free file sharing website enabling users to upload and share music. In 2005 Kazaa was taken to the Australian Federal court by numerous record labels for infringement of copyright acts (AustLII 2005). The judge ruled Kazaa had breeched the copyright act, and was ordered to pay damages to the record companies (AustLII 2005). Stories saturated the media about consumers as young as 12 years old arrested for using Kazaa to illegally download music (FOX News Network 2003).
At the time I was regularly using Kazaa. I didn’t realise it was illegal and in a panic I went to my dad and explained how I could be arrested for downloading music. He immediately uninstalled the program and that was the end of it.
During a recent tutorial discussion the issue of copyrighting emerged. It struck me again how such an innocent mistake on my behalf could have such ramifications. I thought I would take this opportunity to explore the issue of regulation and the internet, focusing mainly on the problems that arise from the collaborative nature of this format.
Many believe that the internet should use formal, traditional regulation in order to create order and stability within the online environment (Harvard Law Review Association 2008, 1387). In the music industry record companies are reporting losses due to the increase in sales of pirated CDs as well as illegal file sharing (Easley 2005, 165). I believe lack of regulation makes it hard to judge the quality of material produced on websites, as producers have a hard time standardising and monitoring all information created (Bruns 2008a). For example Wikipedia is open to public collaboration, nevertheless it is monitored by the Wikipedia community panel in order to remove offensive content and maintain a consistent level of quality (Wikipedia 2008).
The open source format of the internet makes regulation difficult (Bruns 2008b). Some believe that regulation will hinder the creative flow of information, and halt collaboration and interaction (Harvard Law Review Association 2008, 1405). Furthermore the argument is made complicated by claims that there is a fine line between file sharing being illegal or just immoral behaviour (Easley 2005, 166). Amid the ethical dilemmas and strong push for deregulation, strict governmental standardization and regulation of the internet would be a challenge (Harvard Law Review Association 2008).
Another view is that the internet, through its self-governed and evolving nature, is creating its own form of regulation (Harvard Law Review Association 2008, 1388).
"The Principles show that cyberspace is evolving toward a model of negotiated self-governance against a background of legally enforceable rules. The very need for the Principles illustrates the failure of traditional law as a sole, sufficient solution to the problem of online copyright infringement, but the Principles nevertheless build upon traditional law" (Harvard Law Review Association 2008, 1388)
I believe this statement adequately sums up the model of internet regulation. Even though file sharing still occurs within my social network, I have noticed that it is no longer socially acceptable. Now that users are aware they are breaking the law, even though their chances of getting caught are remote, they’re still reluctant to participate because of the moral and social ramifications.
AustLII. 2005. Universal Music Australia Pty Ltd v Sharman License Holdings Ltd (with Corrigendum dated 22 September 2005) [2005] FCA 1242 (5 September 2005). http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/cases/cth/federal_ct/2005/1242.html (accessed April 30, 2008).
Bruns, A. 2008a. KCB201 Virtual Cultures: Week 10 Podcast: Citizen Journalism. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_29175_1 (accessed April 30, 2008).
Bruns, A. 2008b. KCB201 Virtual Cultures: Week 9 Podcast: Open Source Software.
http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_29175_1 (accessed April 30, 2008).
Easley, R. F. 2005. Ethical Issues in the Music Industry Response to Innovation and Piracy. Journal of Business Ethics 62 (2): 163-168. http://proquest.umi.com.ezp01.library.qut.edu.au/pqdweb?index=54&did=936338271&SrchMode=1&sid=1&Fmt=6&VInst=PROD&VType=PQD&RQT=309&VName=PQD&TS=1210148533&clientId=14394 (accessed April 30, 2008).
FOX News Network. 2003. 12-year Sued for Music Downloading. FOX News. September 2003. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,96797,00.html (accessed April 30, 2008).
Harvard Law Review Association. 2008. The Principles for User Generated Content Services: A Middle-Ground Approach to Cyber-Governance. Harvard Law Review 121 (5) 1387-1408.
http://gateway.library.qut.edu.au/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bsh&AN=31392588&site=ehost-live (accessed April 30, 2008).
Wikipedia. 2008. Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia (accessed April 30, 2008).
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2 comments:
The following post can be found on my Myspace blog, dated 05 Oct 2007. View this link to access links that haven't transferred into this comment.
The 4 big music groups should be thanking Jammie Thomas. In fact, they oughta be paying her – probably somewhere in the millions.
Today Jammie Thomas became the first person to be charged for uploading music onto file-sharing websites (although Jammie still says she didn't do it).
This one act of legal (in)justice will be 100 times more effective than any lousy "piracy: it's against the law campaign" in deterring those rascally music pirates. There's no advertising like headlines, and there's no motivator like fear. Record companies don't need to spend millions on ad campaigns; they just need to start prosecuting.
Either that or come up with a fairer, adaptive business model….but that's probably just wishful thinking. Maybe Radiohead are leading the way?
For me, I'm not fussed, music will always exist, you can't hold it down. While I generally don't participate in music piracy, I can see that it's fairly Robin Hood-esque (steals from the rich and gives to the poor). Small, independent bands benefit greatly from file sharing and too-big-for-their-boots bands like Metallica get what they deserve.
I'm not sure what the big deal is though, if all of the record companies have agreed that their music videos can be hosted on Youtube(bar some stubborn folk, such as Prince), why would they not allow the standard audio files be shared?
Software and film piracy, however, is a different ball game and I am not so open-minded. These are not industries that stand to benefit from increased exposure the way the music industry does.
Not long ago a guy from Sydney was charged for uploading his mobile-phone recorded version of The Simpsons movie. The reaction in the media was huge, because no one could believe someone was actually getting prosecuted for this
Emma,
I was dumbfounded when I read in your blog that formal regulation schemes should be introduced into the online community. While I do believe Axel Bruns (2008a) when he says that online producers and communities are having a hard time monitoring, evaluating and standardising all online data, I could not help but feel betrayed. If the online community were to become over regulated I feel that the lustre of the technology would be lost. Online I am free to do basically whatever I want, and regulation would take this away from me, bind my fingers away from the keyboard, or so I feel (but perhaps that is me as a ‘righteous’ user speaking). By no means do I feel that conducting in essentially illegal conduct in the cyber world is any different to real world crime, however I wonder where, to borrow and old catch-phrase, the buck stops. Would regulation simply arrest the conduct of cyber wrongdoers, or, is the freedom of every individual to be sacrificed. While this may be for the greater good, I hope it doesn’t get that far. As Bruns (2008b) also says it is the users that are best at regulating the cyber beast, achieved by “fluid heterarchy, ad hoc meritocracy; a fundamental principle of produsage... The community governs itself through a constant process of mutual evaluation through peer commentary and criticism”. So I guess the difficulty lies now in determining which packets of data out there are illegal and which aren’t. The internet is a new medium, and sure there will be mistakes made, but as a new medium new rules and parameters have to be set. Consequently, we play the waiting game; until true and free reform can be applied the internet is sadly free game for wrong doers. I just hope that moral values prevail long enough to restrain those who wrongly exploit the medium, before it is too late, especially for the music industry.
Bruns, A. 2008c. KCB201 Citizen Journalism. Week 10 Podcast. http://blackboard.qut.edu.au/webapps/portal/frameset.jsp?tab=courses&url=/bin/common/course.pl?course_id=_29175_1 (accessed May 8, 2008).
Bruns, A. 2008. News Blogs and Citizen Journalism: Perpetual Collaboration in Evaluating the News in Bruns, A. Blogs, Wikipedia, Second Life, and Beyond: From Production to Produsage, New York: Peter Lang, 69-100.
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