Peer to Peer Networks and Copyright Infingement

11 September 2008

By Michael Coyle

This is the scenario. Your identity was obtained by the complainant following an order from the court against various Internet service providers whose Internet facilities it is claimed have been used by you for the purposes of downloading copyright material. You are a user of P2P software and you have been 'helping yourself' ie downloading and subsequently 'helping others' to download ie a sort of uploading the copyright works for others to download. In short you are committing an act of copyright infringement.

After you have been identified, you will receive a solicitor's letter. If you admit that you have used P2P software, but was unaware that by doing so, you were distributing music then there is an infringement and you are infringing s.16(1)(d) and 20 of the Copyright Designs and Patents 1988 Act. The Act gives the copyright owner the exclusive right to communicate the work to the public. By virtue of you making available to the public the works by computer so that the public may access it from a place and at a time individually chosen by them you are infringing copyright.

So in a nutshell connecting a computer to the Internet, where the computer is running P2P software, and in which files containing copies of the copyright works are placed in a shared directory, falls within the infringing act. DON'T DO IT.

This is a primary act of copyright infringement. Some people may say 'we did not know' or 'everyone does it' but innocence or ignorance is no defence. The mere fact that the files were present and were made available is sufficient for the infringement under s.20 to have been committed.

You will be an infringer by making the copyright available to the public, and authorising the infringement.

Once liability has been established the court will then consider damages.

Michael Coyle is a solicitor advocate who specialises in information technology law and intellectual property law.