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The Lingo
Copyright:
According to the U.S. government’s site (www.copyright.gov), a copyright is: “a form of protection provided by the laws of the United States … to the authors of “original works of authorship,” including literary, dramatic, musical, artistic, and certain other intellectual works. This protection is available to both published and unpublished works.” And what does a copyright do? It gives the owner the “right” to do things like “copy” the material (now you know where that word comes from!) When you make a copy of copyrighted material (like the latest CD from your favorite band) and then give it to a friend, you are violating the copyright.
Download:
If you save files to your computer through a website or peer-to-peer network, you are downloading the files to your own computer. This means that you are copying information from another computer and saving it to your own. If you download copyrighted material, you are breaking the law.
MP3:
An MP3 is the form in which music and other audio recordings are stored electronically. You can download MP3s onto your computer, convert CDs into MP3 form, and listen to MP3s. This is the form in which music is “swapped” on P2P networks.
Node:
A node is one user in a computer network. For example, if you are connected to a P2P file sharing network, your computer is one node in the network.
P2P:
This stands for “peer-to-peer.” Kazaa, LimeWire, BitTorrent, and Morpheus are just a few examples of P2P network providers. There are hundreds of similar programs. All of these programs work by setting up a temporary network between computers. In other words, they connect your computer to all the other computers that are using their service. This way you can directly swap files between users, which is a fast and difficult-to-trace way of downloading and uploading materials.
Public Domain:
After the copyright has “worn off” (a copyright is only effective for a certain number of years), creative work becomes part of the public domain. That means that anyone can reproduce it. Unfortunately, most (if not all) of the music you hear on the radio and on TV is NOT public domain. Most of the files being “swapped” online are not public domain, so it’s illegal to download or upload them.
Supernode:
Fast computers in a P2P network serve as supernodes. These computers make searching for files faster and easier for other users, and probably also allow other computers to download material from them.
Upload:
If you send files from your computer to another computer, you are uploading them. This allows another computer user to download (save to the other computer) files from your computer.
A Swashbuckling History
The Internet has its roots in the late 1960’s. The U.S. military developed the technology and sent the first message between two computers in different locations in 1969. This marked the beginning of the technology that makes “peer-to-peer” connections possible. As the Internet grew and information could be exchanged with more speed, the threat of online piracy became a reality. In the late ‘90’s you could “surf the ‘net” and find websites offering songs in MP3 form. You could download these songs onto your computer directly from the website. This was illegal, of course, but widely used. The word “MP3” was the most popular Internet search!
Around this time a college dropout created Napster. This was designed to be a centralized way to share music. College kids, taking advantage of their fast Internet connections, could download songs in a flash. The Recording Industry Association of America quickly caught on to what Napster was doing – distributing copyrighted material to anyone with an Internet connection, for free! Because Napster was a centralized program, the RIAA sued its owners. The court eventually ruled in favor of the RIAA, and Napster has since been developed into a legal service. Four college students were sued for running Napster-like programs on their college campuses.
Despite Napster’s “death,” other file sharing networks continued to operate. “P2P” networks were (and are) widely used because, unlike Napster, there is no centralized service. The software that operates programs like LimeWire and Kazaa basically just connects all the users to one another. Music, software, movies, and other materials could be exchanged freely. Now there was no centralized figure to sue – the RIAA and Motion Picture Association of America would have to go after the users of the network directly. The most recent round of these lawsuits were filed in late June 2004. About 480 people were charged with violating copyright laws on music files.
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