From Napster to Peer Impact: The Start of the Cooperation
From the case of MGM v. Grokster mentioned this week, we know more about the copyright liability for p2p networks to take as the third party of it. However, it seems there will be more chances for cooperation between the copyright holders and p2p networks.
In Taiwan, my home country, the situation is similar. In 2002, the copyright holders sued two p2p networks named respectively EzPeer and Kuro for infringement. In the EzPeer case, the Shihlin District Court in Taipei found it's not guilty of infringing copyright law. Conversely, the Taipei District Court sentenced three Kuro's executives and a user to prison. The whole different results has made the media industry confused. The reason is the court thought EzPeer has alternative good functions, but Kuro only promoted itself completely by uploading copyrighted media files.
It's kind of like the summary judgement made in U.S. before the Supreme Court declared the opinions of the MGM v. Grokster. However, in 2006, EzPeer and Kuro successively settled out of court with the plaintiff, so the two cases couldn't be considered again by the Court of appeals in Taiwan.
After the reconciliation, most of the copyright holders even chose to cooperate with EzPeer, making the music uploaded online legally. EzPeer thus became the first legal website for users to share music online. Also, earlier in 2005, the same mold of cooperation appeared in U.S. Several record companies provided music files to Peer Impact, and allowed it as a platform for users to share files.
To me, it's a good start for both copyright holders and p2p networks. In this era of the Internet, it's much harder to prevent users from sharing information and files online. Even if p2p networks are sued constantly, new ones still emerge in a few months. I think copyright holders totally understand the situation, and that's why they started to sell part of the copyright to specific p2p network. It's mutually beneficial to users, p2p networks and copyright holders, and I believe this will be a future trend of the the future.
(April 9, 2009, posted on Media Law in the Media blog)
In Taiwan, my home country, the situation is similar. In 2002, the copyright holders sued two p2p networks named respectively EzPeer and Kuro for infringement. In the EzPeer case, the Shihlin District Court in Taipei found it's not guilty of infringing copyright law. Conversely, the Taipei District Court sentenced three Kuro's executives and a user to prison. The whole different results has made the media industry confused. The reason is the court thought EzPeer has alternative good functions, but Kuro only promoted itself completely by uploading copyrighted media files.
It's kind of like the summary judgement made in U.S. before the Supreme Court declared the opinions of the MGM v. Grokster. However, in 2006, EzPeer and Kuro successively settled out of court with the plaintiff, so the two cases couldn't be considered again by the Court of appeals in Taiwan.
After the reconciliation, most of the copyright holders even chose to cooperate with EzPeer, making the music uploaded online legally. EzPeer thus became the first legal website for users to share music online. Also, earlier in 2005, the same mold of cooperation appeared in U.S. Several record companies provided music files to Peer Impact, and allowed it as a platform for users to share files.
To me, it's a good start for both copyright holders and p2p networks. In this era of the Internet, it's much harder to prevent users from sharing information and files online. Even if p2p networks are sued constantly, new ones still emerge in a few months. I think copyright holders totally understand the situation, and that's why they started to sell part of the copyright to specific p2p network. It's mutually beneficial to users, p2p networks and copyright holders, and I believe this will be a future trend of the the future.
(April 9, 2009, posted on Media Law in the Media blog)