This is a publication by the Virginia Law Review. The section focused upon for the purpose of my research paper is section C: The Kazaa era: 2001 - present. The article provides some unbiased description of the two technologies FastTrack and Gnutella. It focuses on some of the key developments in the filesharing domain after napster specifically the kazaa network. It explains how the technology descriminates between fast connections and slow connections. The article also addresses the issue how lately there appeared an effort by filesharing technology developers to write code that would reflect the copyright law. In the sense that the technology worked in such away as it is hard to place the blame on the developers. It also raises the point that the more files there being shared the better it is for the network performance and in essence for the developer. The other part of the article addresses how the music industries made every effort to stress the similarity between napster and kazaa and the other FastTrack networks. The article goes on to make reference to the Mgm v. Grokster case. Specifically it provides insight to how these technologies may have won out against the recording industries. The article quotes Judge Wilson, who presided over the Grokster case in the ninth district appeals court. The judge said essentially that if the companies were shut down, the users of the network(s) would still be able to do what they were doing.

This article is important for my research paper because it provides basis for an important analysis. For example, it was later seen that the movie industry in fact did win in the supreme court (see Mgm v. Grokster source). So although Judge Wilson ruled in favor of Grokster by saying that the technology was not similar to napster and that even if the company was shut down the users of the software would still be able to do what they were doing, it was later seen in the supreme court that Grokster actually lost. Today it is known that IsoHunt and the like are being sued and so if it is somehow possible to establish the similarity between IsoHunt and Grokster the same strategy may be applied to get IsoHunt shut down. The article also raises a few other important points such as that these networks continue to operate as long as there is more and more content being shared.

This is the U.S. copyright law chapter 1 which deals on the subject matter and scope of Copyright. For the purpose of my research paper only section 106 is going to be focused upon.

Section 106, essentially outlines what exclusive rights copyright owners have. The main three rights it outlnes are the rights to make copies, to make derivitive works, and the right to distribute copies/works. Also the section addresses the rights of copyright owners involving motion pictures, audiovisuals, dramatic, and choreographic works. Essentially the section says that only the copyright owner has the exclusive right to perform or display the work publically. Lastly the section states that only the copyright owner can perform a work digitally.

Section 106 is important for my research paper because in order to determine whether copyright infringement was committed one needs to know what constitutes copyright infringement. Since there is no explicit clause in the constitution pertaining to file-sharing infringement a careful analysis of this section needs to be done. Section 106 provides the legal basis for the argument that when a user downloads a copyrighted work he essentially copies it; similarly when a user uploads a copyrighted work he essentially distributes it. Thus using/promoting a file-sharing technology to download/upload copyrighted material is infringing on the rights of copyright owners established by section 106.