©opyright

Copyright has today become an extremely relevant issue to people who, in the past, would never even had to bother about it at all. This is mostly due to the increase in communication technology and the ease in which people can access and share various forms of media and works.

We all know that they main issue surrounding copyright at the moment is the use of p2p filesharing websites. A lot of these websites claim that they have no control over what their users happen to be sharing as the content is not stored by them, and that they did not create the site with the intention of it being used to share illegal copies of files. This is rubbish, the video I posted below talks about how most of these sites only came about as a replacement of Napster, and the #1 use of filesharing software seems to be to exchange mp3 files. Do any of you know anybody that has downloaded Limewire with the intent to share something mainly OTHER THAN mp3s??

Companies like iTunes are trying to combat this and offer legal downloads of mp3 files and albums, however I do not see this as taking away too much from illegal downloads, as I believe the main reason that people get songs online is not for the convenience of time, but for the fact they do not have to pay for it. If my conscience played on me to the point where I wanted to pay for music, I would make the trip to the CD store (if there are any left these says) and get the physical product for only a few extra dollars, as that is a much more satisfying purchase than and invisible mp3 file.

Here is the video I found on YouTube that talks about copyright and some of the key legal issues relevant to the video sharing community, and in particular a case involving YouTube itself: