The Illegal File Sharing Controversy Information Technology Essay
Illegal sharing of copyrighted material through peer-to-peer P2P applications or other means is a serious crime and may result in university disciplinary action and criminal and civil penalties. NC State students, faculty and staff are expected to respect the intellectual property rights of others and refrain from copyright infringement. Illegal downloading of films via the Internet is done in various ways. One of them is file sharing, which is common in colleges. Other ways in which internet piracy occurs include pirated servers, websites, and hacked computers. A single file posted on the Internet can result in millions of downloads causing a major loss to the music industry. Every week there are more than a billion illegal downloads of music files on this P2P network alone (Ipsos-Reid, 2002). The three most popular file sharing P2P networking sites have a million active users. In addition to costing the music industry billions of dollars annually, file sharing can also be construed as stealing. The controversy over P2P or peer-to-peer network file sharing continues as the technology and entertainment industries eye the U.S. Supreme Court this week. for a crucial decision that.