588 Part IV • The Information Management System
software that enabled people to make MP3files stored
on their computers available to others through a peer-to-
peer (P2P) network so that others could download music
at no cost. Downloading free music became so popular
on college campuses that many colleges started banning
access to Napster on their networks because it used up so
much bandwidth. Record companies began to feel that
their CD sales were being threatened by the download-
ing of free music.
Quickly the major record labels sued Napster in
federal court on the grounds that it was violating their
copyrights. After a good deal of legal maneuvering, the
judge ordered Napster shut down. Napster then converted
to a service through which music could be legally down-
loaded by paying a fee.
This, of course, did not end free downloading of copy-
righted material because other sites and other technologies
spring up faster than they can be shut down. In 2003, the
RIAA began another approach—filing lawsuits against
those individuals making large quantities of copyrighted
music available through a P2P network. These individuals
were identified through a complex process that involved
lookups of the Internet addresses of users. The Digital
Millennium Copyright Act relieves the ISP of legal respon-
sibility for what the user transmits over the Internet, but it
has a provision that allows organizations such as the RIAA
to easily subpoena the names and addresses of suspected
users so that they can be contacted and lawsuits can be filed.
Such a lawsuit is not a trivial matter, for U.S. copy-
right law provides penalties of up to $150,000 for each
violation. Because so many individuals are involved in this
type of activity, the RIAA’s strategy for a time was to file a
number of highly publicized lawsuits as a scare tactic and
thereby substantially reduce the amount of music beingFree Digital Entertainment!
James Phung saw Phone Boothbefore you did. What’s more, he saw it for free, in the comfort of his pri-
vate home-screening room. Phung isn’t a movie star or a Hollywood insider; he’s a junior at the
University of Texas who makes $8 an hour at the campus computer lab. But many big-budget
Hollywood movies have their North American premieres in his humble off-campus apartment. Like mil-
lions of other people, Phung downloads movies for free from the Internet, often before they hit the-
aters.Phone Boothwill fit nicely on his 120-GB hard drive alongside Anger Management,Tears of the
Sun, and about 125 other films, not to mention more than 2,000 songs. Phung is the entertainment in-
dustry’s worst nightmare, but he’s very real, and there are a lot more like him.
In late July 2007, some of the most sought-after downloads were for copies of TV shows planned
for the fall season: NBC’s Bionic Woman, ABC’s Pushing Daisies, the CW’sReaper, and several other TV
shows were available for illegal download on sites such as Torrent Spy, The Pirate Bay, and Mininova.
Other leaked shows included Fox’s midseason The Sarah Connor Chronicles(a spin-off from The
Terminator), NBC’s Chuck, and NBC’s Lipstick Jungle.Television Weekconfirmed that the video down-
loads were of reasonably high quality, akin to the streaming programs on broadcast network Web sites.
According to Big Champagne, a media measurement firm that tracks piracy, the piracy of TV shows
is growing faster on the Web than is the illegal sharing of movies and music. TV executives are beginning to
fight back, but they have a long way to go. They did win an early battle in April 2009 when the people
behind file-sharing site The Pirate Bay were convicted of copyright violation and ordered to pay $3.6 million
in damages to production companies including Columbia, Warner Bros., Sony BMG, and 20th Century Fox.
Big Champagne CEO Eric Garland believes that there are now more than 60 million Internet users world-
wide actively engaged in piracy. As one indication of the extent of the problem, the TorrentFreak Web site
has estimated that there were two TV shows in its “top 10 most pirated TV shows of 2009”—Heroesand
Dexter—where the number of downloads actually exceeded the average viewership in the United States.
According to TorrentFreak, both HeroesandLosthad more than six million downloads in 2009.
Newly released movies turn up online before they hit the theaters. Record albums debut on the
Internet before they have a chance to hit the charts. TV pilots are available for viewing months ahead of
the next season. Record numbers of TV shows are being downloaded illegally. Somewhere along the
line, millions of computer users worldwide have made a collective decision that since no one can make
them pay for entertainment, they’re not going to.
[Based on Grossman, 2003; Hibberd, 2007; TorrentFreak, 2009; and Whitney, 2009]