The Music Business Section -

Copyright Laws and Video Downloads

Chances are you’ve heard of Napster. If you are a member of the younger generation, you may have benefited from it in its heyday a few years ago. If you are a little older, then you probably know it from the legal battles it fought recently against Metallica. One of the cases with the most media attention, it illustrates well the way our legal system has had trouble since the mid 1980’s in keeping up with the every growing amount of internet based crime and theft. Surprisingly, since the Napster incident, the government has been getting better and better at spotting and combating the most prevalent of internet misconduct: the pirating of media. Media piracy can be simply and concretely defined as the download or use (whether personal or no) of any copyrighted material including (but not limited to) music, movies, pictures, and programs. Everything has been pirated, from operating system software for PC’s to the latest Hollywood blockbusters.

With the invention and popularization of peer-to-peer file sharing systems (known commonly as P2P), this piracy became increasingly rampant in the late 1990’s and has only begun to decline in the last two years due to revamped detection and prosecution policies instituted by the federal government in the so called “Betamax Decision.” This decision stated that while P2P file sharing networks are often used illegally, they are not, as such, inherently illegal. This means that software like Limewire, BitTorrent, Morpheus, and BearShare, which are all linked to P2P networks, are not illegal in and of themselves; only their improper use can be prosecuted by law. This may have been a good thing for the makers and promoters of such software, but it has caused confusion and lack of clarity among the general population in regards to the difference between legal and illegal downloading practices. Even with all the media attention that internet piracy has received in the last few years, there are still some consumers who are unaware that their download practices are illegal.

You may have heard that illegal downloading is “too hard to track” or “too widespread to prosecute.” This, however, is a myth. Government tracking software has become adept enough to be able to track the source and recipient of an illegal file transfer. They have also begun to seriously crack down on those who practice media piracy over the internet. One important fact is that the prosecution in such copyright infringement cases does not need to prove that the person performing the illegal download intended to infringe copyright; they need only prove that such infringement occurred. To cut that down into a more intelligible form, you can be guilty of piracy even if you do not intend to break copyright laws.

Yet despite all this, you may have heard of people downloading movies cheaply or even for free on the internet legally. Although there are few, if any, reputable websites or file sharing software programs that allow free downloads legally, there are several methods that those who wish to download and purchase movies and video content online can use that are relatively affordable. More and more electronics stores and online based shops such as Bestbuy.com or Amazon.com are offering digital video content which you can purchase and then download straight to your PC. These are very reputable methods for downloading media; however, they tend to be nearly as expensive as purchasing a conventional DVD. The download speeds tend to be relatively slow, because these sites often use a third party file transfer system, slowing downloads considerably in order to save bandwidth on their main website.

By far the most widespread, most reliable, and most affordable means for purchasing movies and television content on the internet is the Apple software, iTunes. Originally an interface software meant to organize and play music files, Apple has cleverly expanded it to include television shows, movies, and internet radio, and has added the iTunes Store, allowing users to purchase music for around $1 a song, television episodes for $3, and movies for anything from $5-$15. They also boast one of the largest databases, meaning that more record companies, television studios, and film studios license iTunes to offer their content for sale in the iTunes store than most other online retailers. The simplicity of this software and relative amount of content offered makes iTunes one of the most popular methods for legal movie downloading. Of course, the Apple iPod is also a factor which makes iTunes even handier. Now that iPods can hold and display video content, it is simple to download movies to your computer with iTunes and then quickly synch it to your iPod, effectively giving you on the go movies, music, and television for a good price. Download speeds for iTunes vary depending on the size of the file (movies take longer than television episodes, of course), but are usually faster than websites that employ third party file transfer. 

With these functional and affordable methods that do not violate copyright laws, why is illegal downloading still prevalent? The fact remains that, while cheap is cheap, free is still free, and while convenient is great, easy is better. P2P file sharing networks work by allowing each user to access the shared media files on every other member’s computer, thus allowing a database that is all but infinite, depending on the number of uses who share files. They also employ a method of file transfer which allows a single file to be downloaded from several users at once in small pieces, and then reassembled on the computer of the recipient. This method, called bandwidth sharing, can speed up downloads to times so fast that they are almost ridiculous. At the peak of its usage, a P2P network like Kazaa (one of the first popular alternatives to Napster) boasted download speeds in excess of 500kb/sec. If this figure means nothing to you, here is the breakdown. A typical 3-4 minute music file takes up around 5 megabytes (mb) of space. There are 1000 kilobytes (kb) per megabyte, so if a song of average length is downloaded at a rate of 500kb/sec, it would take approximately ten seconds.

But there is, unfortunately, no legal way to download content at this speed. The best legal means for downloading movies and video content is still currently iTunes, or one of its competitors. Don’t give up hope, however, as fast as one technology goes out of style, a new one is invented, so keep your eyes open, there may soon be a faster and easier method for downloading movies and media on the internet.

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