So is sharing a folder copyright infringement?
Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008A US Judge on Monday upheld the view that sharing copyrighted music is infringement. It’s a defeat for defendant Denise Barker and the Electronic Frontier Foundation, and a victory for the four record labels in the case, led by Warner’s Elektra.
The Copyright Act is fairly clear. It defines “publication” as “offering to distribute copies or phonorecords to a group of persons for purposes of further distribution, public performance, or public display” – but sensibly separates out performance or display itself from the definition. The legal code defines five exclusive rights of copyright: reproduction, adaptation, publication, performance, and display.
Now, digital media blurs the distinction between performance and distribution in lots of interesting ways, but unfortunately, none of these were raised in the case. The EFF instead homed in on the technical point of whether publication was distribution.
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