Last week's decision by the U.S. Supreme Court regarding file
sharing will likely put a serious dent in the market for
peer-to-peer systems that permit users to share files, such as
music and video.
The Supreme Court ruled that providers of peer-to-peer software
can be held liable for files that are illegally copied using
their tools if it can be proved that they encouraged users of
their tools to violate copyright law. Because copyright
violations are punishable by huge fines for each offense, the
ruling could easily make peer-to-peer companies liable for
hundreds of millions of dollars in damages in future lawsuits.
One source estimates that more than 30 billion files are
illegally copied every year.
So what does this mean for the typical enterprise? It's
important to understand the impact of peer-to-peer on your own
network. There are several tools available that will allow you
to scan your network for peer-to-peer traffic and get a basic
understanding of how much peer-to-peer traffic your users are
sending and receiving each day.
With that information in hand, it's important for any
organization to formulate a policy about the use of peer-to-peer
systems on the computers it owns. Just like having an
acceptable-use policy about e-mail and instant messaging
systems, it's important to have a similar policy about
peer-to-peer use. This is made all the more important because of
the fact that an organization that allows peer-to-peer users to
share content using its computers in violation of copyright law
could also be on the hook for damages if an employee is caught
violating the law.
As an example of a good policy is the one that the Anchorage
School District has established, which reads, in part, "Illegal
copies of copyrighted material may not be made or used on
District equipment. The legal or insurance protection of the
District will not be extended to employees who violate copyright
laws."
Any organization must understand how much peer-to-peer traffic
is traveling across its network and the nature of this traffic,
and it must formulate a clear and concise acceptable-use policy
for peer-to-peer systems. Not to do so exposes an organization
to enormous liability.
such a joke....people will simply burn CD's and mail them via snail mail.
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