Top > Webmaster > 2006 > July > 2006-07-12

File Sharing Does Not Stop

Last year the U.S. Supreme Court decided to give a green light to lawsuits against the file sharing businesses, thus letting us seem that the file-swapping software is in danger. According to the Supreme Court, developers of these programs can be thought as legally responsible for the unauthorized sharing by their users ? since the technology companies were in a way encouraging customers to steal music and movie files. The chief executive at Sony BMG Music Entertainment Andrew Lack said then that "[Sony] will no longer have to compete with thieves in the night whose businesses are built on larceny".

And yet only a year later, the file sharing still goes on, with the most popular firms such as eDonkey, Kazaa, Morpheus and others. Although some of the firms did the threat of a lawsuit did force the operators to shut down, the number of people using file-sharing services has only increased from 8.6 million users to 9.7 million worldwide.

The Recording Industry Association of America, which represents the major recording companies, is trying to clarify the legal roadmap for copyright in the Internet Age and to motivate some of the file-sharing operators to close down or go legit.