Friday, November 5, 2010

Peer to Peer File Sharing Liability

Liability for peer to peer file sharing of music is an issue in which many undergraduate students have both an interest and a dangerous propensity for accepting folklore as fact. The latest example of enormous civil judgments for downloading and sharing music files was reported today. The most famous example is probably the case involving Harvard professor Charles Nesson. The RIAA provides a free DVD entitled "Campus Downloading" that may be used in class to identify the issue.  It is not a discussion of the legal issues, but rather a no-nonsense presentation of the state of the law and RIAA's policy on enforcement. You may order a free copy of the DVD or play it directly from the website. To inject some balance into the discussion I also show the Weird Al Yankovic music video below where he cleverly challenges the notion that music was not meant to be shared.


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