Paper
Internet Copyright Laws and Digital Industries
- Authors:
- Nigel Mc Kelvey; Matthew Clifton; Clara Quigley; Kevin Curran
- Abstract
- Internet usage has grown at an almost astronomical rate with penetration (per percentage population) rates hitting figures near 80% in certain regions. Africa alone has seen Internet usage growth rates in excess of 2,500% from 2000 to 2011 (Miniwatts, 2011). With such an increase in the user base, coupled with major advances in Internet technologies, it is hardly surprising that ‘cyber’ crimes have increased proportionately (Savvas, 2011). Internet Protocol technologies such as peer-to-peer (P2P) and Torrent have ‘paved the way’ to allow the Internet to become a ‘virtual shop’ – a dodgy market stall is probably a better analogy - where anything (and everything) is freely available is you dig down deep enough. With these new distributed technologies and the increased availability of fast broadband connections, start-up companies such as Napster, along with more ‘seedier’ organisations such as The Pirate Bay, rose from the technological fire to become leaders of the new file-sharing generation (Sydell, 2011). With the current legal framework for regulating copyright infringement and protecting Intellectual Property (IP) being gravely outdated, this paper will examine at the case surrounding Napster and debates whether current Internet copyright laws can be updated to protect digital industries without stifling the underlying freedoms of Internet usage.
- Keywords
- Online Copyright; Internet Copyright Law; Online Law; Cyber Law; Intellectual Property; Digital Industries
- StartPage
- 174
- EndPage
- 178
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