NAPSTER, GNUTELLA, BITTORRENT: DISCUSS LEGAL AND TECHNICAL ASPECTSBy: Kaleb Fulgham

OVERVIEW History

Napster Gnutella BitTorrent

Legal issues RIAA & MPAA DMCA & Copyright Act of 1976 Court cases & lawsuits

HISTORY

NAPSTER June 1999: Shawn Fanning, undergraduate at

Northeastern University, & Sean Parker released Napster, the first major Peer-to-Peer (P2P) software

Napster Faster and less frustrating way to swap MP3s online than

HTTP & FTP Inspired by IRC’s easy-to-use format Central servers contained an index of lists of user music

files Search box List of usernames & their files

NAPSTER Built in C++ and popularized through IRC October 1999: 150,000 registered users trading

3.5 million files February 2001: 26.4 million registered users Hardware

Peaked in 2001: 150 index only servers containing IP address info on usernames & their MP3 metadata

Similar to a telephone switchboard operator

NAPSTER Napster client connects to a

central server User queries the Napster

Central Index Server Central server returns a

list of matches Napster client connects

with the computer hosting the file

Client drops allowing private transfer Your Computer

GNUTELLA March 2000: Justin Frankel & Tom Peppers of

high-tech Nullsoft (an AOL acquisition) published Gnutella. Nullsoft created MP3-player Winamp

Gnutella Functionally similar to Napster Key Difference: Did NOT rely on one central server Each user or “node” functioned as their own server Pre-loaded with IP addresses of known nodes

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GNUTELLA Gnutella posted on AOL’s website Slashdot news leak led to increased publicity AOL & Time Warner (Music Group) merger

AOL made Nullsoft abandon project Gnutella had spread world-wide

Free & open source clones appeared Examples: LimeWire & BearShare

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GNUTELLA Gnutella client knows at least 1 other node User queries 1st node The node sends

request to other nodesuntil song is found TTL limited requests

Returns file name andmachine IP address

Client connects to file owner’s node to transfer

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GNUTELLA Latest Gnutella Version 0.6

Composite network: Leaf nodes and Ultrapeers Leaf nodes connect to ~3 Ultrapeers Ultrapeer connects to >32 other Ultrapeers Max number of “hops” lowered from 7 to 4.

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BITTORRENT July 2001: Bram Cohen released the BitTorrent

protocol which he designed in April 2001 BitTorrent

Efficient at sharing large quantities of data

Download pieces of the file(s) simultaneously from multiple peers

Tracker servers inform clients of all online active peers

Downloads “rarest-first” to ensure high availability

BITTORRENT Torrent file – .torrent

Metadata about the file(s) shared Checksums of identically sized (512KB) pieces of the

file(s) being shared Tracker server(s) – help coordinate file distribution

BitTorrent protocol does NOT offer search Many websites offer searchable indexes of torrents

Tracker servers are run on torrent search websites & some companies who need to distribute large files

BITTORRENT User searches for a torrent User downloads & opens it

with a BitTorrent client Client connects to the

tracker(s) in the torrent file Receives a list of peers

currently transferring thepieces of the file(s) specified in the torrent.

Client connects to peers to obtain the various pieces.

LEGAL ISSUES

LEGAL ISSUES RIAA & MPAA DMCA & Copyright Act of 1976 Court cases & lawsuits

A&M Records, Inc. v. Napster, Inc. MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster, Ltd. The Pirate Bay (BitTorrent) Raid in Sweden RIAA v. the People MPAA v. TorrentSpy

RIAA & MPAA RIAA – Recording Industry Association of America

Represents the recording industry Protect intellectual property rights worldwide and the

First Amendment rights of artists Perform research about the music industry Monitor and review relevant laws, regulations and

policies MPAA – Motion Picture Association of America

Advance business interests of movie studios Film rating system & Anti-piracy measures

DMCA & COPYRIGHT ACT Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998

Subpoena To Identify Infringer - 17 U.S.C. § 512(h) Copyright Act of 1976

Liable $750 - $30,000 per song, feature film, etc. illegally traded as the court considers just

Up to $150,000 per title if intentional & willful

A&M RECORDS, INC. V. NAPSTER, INC. December 1999: RIAA filed a lawsuit against

Napster RIAA argued in District Court

Napster users directly infringe on plaintiff’s copyright Napster is liable for contributory & vicarious

copyright infringement Internal Napster email from Sean Parker to Shawn

Fanning stating that users know they are “exchanging pirated music.”

A&M RECORDS, INC. V. NAPSTER, INC. Napster’s defense

Sony Corp. of America v. Universal City Studios, Inc. Napster similar to Sony Betamax VHS recorder

Fair Use Sampling Space-shifting Permissive distribution

Audio Home Recording Act

A&M RECORDS, INC. V. NAPSTER, INC. United States District Court ruled in favor of the

RIAA United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth

Circuit Napster - Liable for contributory & vicarious

infringement Napster users infringe at least two of the copyright

holders’ rights the rights of reproduction, § 106(1) distribution, § 106(3)

A&M RECORDS, INC. V. NAPSTER, INC. Ninth Circuit ruling March 5, 2001

Napster capable of commercially significant non-infringing uses

Could control the infringing behavior of users Must prevent trading of copyright music

Napster paid roughly $36 million to copyright owners

MGM STUDIOS, INC. V. GROKSTER, LTD June 2005: MGM sued P2P client companies

Grokster & Streamcast P2P lost for inducing copyright infringement for acts

taken in marketing their file sharing software Both advertised as “Napster alternatives” “[T]he goal is to get in trouble with the law and get

sued. It’s the best way to get in the new[s]”– Streamcast chief technology officer

MGM statistician revealed that ~90% of all files available on the P2P were copyrighted works

THE PIRATE BAY RAID 2004: MPAA pressured the U.S. and Swedish

government to shut down The Pirate Bay May 2006: Police in Sweden raided The Pirate Bay,

shut down their website, & confiscated their servers The Pirate Bay

BitTorrent search engine & tracker server Launched in November 2003 by

Gottfrid Svartholm & Fredrik Neij Down for 3 days Publicity and +1.7 million more users

THE PIRATE BAY TRIAL January 2008: Criminal & civil prosecution in

Sweden for promoting the copyright infringement of others with torrents by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI).

Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm, Peter Sunde, and Carl Lundström

Found guilty Sentenced to 1 year in prison Pay a fine of $3.5 million

RIAA V. THE PEOPLE 2003: RIAA began a litigation campaign against

those who infringe copyright law Lawsuits against ~30,000 people

Usually settled out of court: $3,500 avg. total Court settlements: $750 - $150,000 per song

“Attempted distribution” is NOT in Copyright Act Simply storing copyright material in P2P “share” folders “Infringement of the distribution right requires an

actual dissemination of either copies or phonorecords” – cited in Atlantic v. Howell

RIAA V. THE PEOPLE October 2008: Harper claimed she did not know

she was doing anything illegal She thought downloading music was like the radio Judge ruled $7,400 (37 songs @ $200/song) for

“innocent infringement” June 2009: Jamie Thomas-Rasset found liable for

infringing 24 songs for $1.92 million July 2009: Joel Tenenbaum found liable for

infringing 30 songs for $675,000

MPAA V. TORRENTSPY February 2006: MPAA sued TorrentSpy.com

Facilitating copyright infringement by linking to torrents containing copyright films

May 2008: U.S. District Judge ruled Against TorrentSpy.com’s Justin Bunnell & associates Must pay the max $30,000 for “each of the 3,699

infringements shown.” $111 million

CONCLUSION Direct HTTP / FTP downloads strain servers P2P file sharing systems

Convenient to search Effectively distribute load

Majority of content on BitTorrent & P2P is copyright material

Downloading & Sharing copyright information without permission is copyright infringement

Public domain file sharing is LEGAL!

Questions?

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SOURCES http://howstuffworks.com for diagrams Appetite for Self-Destruction – Steve Knopper All The Rave – Joseph Menn ArsTechnica – http://arstechnica.com EFF – http://eff.org