Copyright protection in the Internet age: Whether copyright can combat against Peer-to-peer technology

Abstract

The advancement of technology has resulted in the change of traditional ideas and the concept of copyright protection. Some may assume that digital technologies, peer-to-peer (P2P) systems in particular, have put copyright protection at risk, for today anyone is capable of copying or disseminating a great number of copyrighted materials such as music, videos or books easily via the Internet. The relevance of the topic is determined by P2P technology being considered the most prevalent technology which has contributed to the spread of illegal file-sharing in the Internet age. This article is aimed to analyze the impact of P2P technology on copyright protection. The novelty of this paper consists in the development of specific proposals on the improvement of copyright protection in the Internet age through the comparative analysis of foreign legal acts. Given the present circumstances, the paper raises some legal questions whether there are appropriate legal acts to resolve the problems of illegal file-sharing and if so, whether they need to be further updated. To answer these questions, the author applies some legal research methods such as comparative-legal, historical, formal legal and formal logic ones. The author concludes that regarding Digital Economy Act and Hadopi Law there is need to specify such a term as «subscriber». As the evidence shows, it might be a broad term, either a person at home or business like a café or a hotel, which enables another individual to connect to the Internet and therefore it would be a problem to find a true infringer. Moreover, it is essential to re-examine the IP addresses in tracking infringers, because in most cases it does not provide the irrefutable proof that a person has committed online infringement.