While I understand certain ethic questions might arise regarding the sharing of music, I have studied the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) at great lengths and find no instances that indicate file sharing for non-commercial music is a crime. In 2001, I attended a cyberlaw course with Dennis Karjala, a copyright expert, at ASU. I believe that as it currently stands, the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA), Title 17, Chapter 10, Subchapter D, Section 1008, secures the recording and storage of audio files because a computer is NOT or should not be considered a "device SPECIFICALLY designed to store and record audio..." as long as the audio files are used in a non-commercial way. According to the minidisc site http://www.minidisc.org/ahra.html, a site that the RIAA owned stated that "As long as the copying is done for noncommericial use, the AHRA gives consumers immunity from suit for all analog music copying, and for digital music copying with AHRA covered devices."

On this site, the following text, "It is important to note that the AHRA does not say that such copying is lawful; it simply provides an immunity from suit." indicates that the RIAA or author wants people to understand the AHRA does not say copying is lawful. While the AHRA might not make copying lawful, the AHRA does protect users from a lawsuit. If this is true, then why did the RIAA, knowingly recently sue university students? Was that a strategy to intimidate and frighten the students? The RIAA would never have won such a case, because of the AHRA, unless of course, those students were copying and sharing for profit. The RIAA is aware of the AHRA as they tried to stop Diamond RIO unsucessfully using the AHRA.

Recently, I corresponded with one of the students who settled a music sharing suit with the RIAA. I apologized to this young man for not informing him sooner of his rights. Unfortunately, his life savings is now depleted because of the RIAA, their intimidation methods, and his lack of correct information.

While some might believe the DMCA or "newer copyright" might override the AHRA (Audio Home Recording Act), I have yet to read anything but subscription services entered in that section. I challenge anyone to find differently.

There are several different architectures of file sharing, as you may or may not know. One highly available file sharing system is a Windows share based on the SMB protocol developed by Microsoft to allow remote access to disk resources over a network. It was developed before the Internet was flooded in use by the general public. This protocol was only really used for a LAN environment. However, it is routable over the Internet and allows users to offer files to others.

While Microsoft had this proprietary networking system, TCP/IP was developed for UNIX systems. There are similarities between the two, however TCP/IP is simply a backbone for communication and doesn't include interfaces for actual sharing such as password options. Nevertheless, to say that file sharing systems such as GNUTELLA, KaZaa, Napster, AudioGalaxy, SwapNut, Edonkey2000, DirectConnect, and FreeNET are unique or somehow specialized for copyright abuse or infringement is rather absurd since these are riding on top of TCP/IP which bears similarity to SMB which many universities use to provide students with access to instructor classroom storage drives, student personal storage space and they are sometimes used to allow remote applications to be used by students across a network.

The particular implementation of the user interface might be questionable. The popularity of such an interface may be greater than the popularity of a more mundane interface used for jobs and tasks performed by the users. This does not justify labeling sharing services as evil. The blame and responsibility falls upon the users. Some people have been claiming that widespread use of these interfaces might as well be accepted. That might be unfortunate for the interests of the RIAA, Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and other copyright management organizations. However, these organizations are merely equal players in the world just as anyone else. Though they may have rights granted by "law", they are in no way entitled to special treatment, nor do they have the authority to take actions against the producers of the software

In other words, it's just software. Can a tool commit a crime in and of itself? If not, as seems to make most sense, then is it not absurd to make laws that can only arbitrarily criminalize a tool, for no other reason than a fear of infringement?

In some file sharing services, such as SMB, Gnutella and Gnutella based file sharing service s, the content is ONLY on the users' drives.

The indexing of content is performed on each and every connected computer, unlike Napster which collected search results to a central server and could have been considered not so much accessory to infringement, but able to control the distribution of those files.

There is a middle ground for some file sharing systems which connect in a distributed fashion like GNUtella based, but may use caching or multiple, centralized indexes as a way of improving performance but these services have much less control over indexes than Napster did so it's unlikely they can be considered as controllable gateway to the files and so cannot even be considered even partially liable or responsible.

It is important to take into account the architecture of the systems, the fact that every Windows system had a file sharing system to begin with, though may not be as user friendly as these "infamous" ones and to take into account there are reasonable limits to what the copyright management organizations should be allowed to prosecute regardless how much supposed damage these "tools" are causing, if any.

And again, we must remember that the AHRA legalizes non-commercial recording and storage of audio files.

Granted, ASU and other universities seem to think it is well within their "rights" (private property) to spy on, monitor and punish students. However, I believe the assertation that it is "illegal" to share music files or store and record music files as false and challenge any legal department to find otherwise. Regardless of the legality of the music sharing, users are immune to any lawsuits as long as the music is copied for non-commercial purposes.

The controversy over music copying can be put to rest as more people understand their rights in this matter. Copyright, patent and trademark law is transforming. The old bargain between copyright owner and user is hanging in the balance. As it stands today, it looks like this law protects the user. Now it is up to us to inform each other and protect ourselves.