Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | E | Ethics and Information Technology

P2P networks and the Verizon v. RIAA case: implications for personal privacy and intellectual property.

Article Excerpt
Abstract. In this paper, we examine some ethical implications of a controversial court decision in the United States involving Verizon (an Internet Service Provider or ISP) and the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA). In particular, we analyze the impacts this decision has for personal privacy and intellectual property. We begin with a brief description of the controversies and rulings in this case. This is followed by a look at some of the challenges that peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, used to share digital information, pose for our legal and moral systems. We then examine the concept of privacy to better understand how the privacy of Internet users participating in P2P file-sharing practices is threatened under certain interpretations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the United States. In particular, we examine the implications of this act for a new form of "panoptic surveillance" that can be carried out by organizations such as the RIAA. We next consider the tension between privacy and property-right interests that emerges in the Verizon case, and we examine a model proposed by Jessica Litman for distributing information over the Internet in a way that respects both privacy and property rights. We conclude by arguing that in the Verizon case, we should presume in favor of privacy as the default position, and we defend the view that a presumption should be made in favor of sharing (rather than hoarding) digital information. We also conclude that in the Verizon case, a presumption in favor of property would have undesirable effects and would further legitimize the commodification of digital information--a recent trend that is reinforced by certain interpretations of the DMCA on the part of lawmakers and by aggressive tactics used by the RIAA.

Key words: DMCA, intellectual property, Panopticon, privacy, RIAA, surveillance, Verizon

VERIZON v. RIAA: Background issues

In January 2003, a US district court, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, ruled that Verizon (an Internet service provider) must comply with a subpoena by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), a trade group representing the interests of the recording industry, requesting the name of a subscriber who allegedly made available more than 600 copyrighted music files over the Internet. This ruling sent shock waves throughout the Internet community, especially for those who saw the court's decision as one that advanced the interests of copyright owners at the expense of broader values such as freedom of speech and privacy in cyberspace.

The move on the part of the RIAA was part of its attempt to stop file sharing of copyrighted music over the Internet. Many Internet Service Providers (ISPs), such as Comcast, and many universities eventually complied with subpoenas issued on behalf of the RIAA. However, Verizon refused to hand over the names of its subscribers to the RIAA on the grounds that doing so violated specific articles of the U.S. Constitution. The RIAA contended that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) supported its demand. Verizon refused to comply with the subpoena, arguing that no illicit music was stored on its servers and that as an ISP, Verizon fell outside the scope of the subpoena. However, the District Court ruled that "the subpoena power ... applies to all Internet service providers within the scope of the DMCA, not just to those service providers storing information on a system or network at the direction of a user." (1)

In an appeals ruling on December 19, 2003, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia overturned the lower court's decision. The Appeals Court also noted that while it was sympathetic to those who hold music copyrights, it was not in the court's purview to "rewrite the DMCA." Only Congress, the Court argued, could amend the DMCA to carry out the kind of enforcement measures requested by the RIAA.

Although we do not dispute the RIAA's claim that the copying and distribution of proprietary music has cost the recording industry millions of dollars, we believe that other important ethical issues also need to be examined in the RIAA v. Verizon dispute. Among those issues are the impacts that the RIAA's actions have for individual privacy, anonymous speech, and civil liberties in on-line activities. We also believe that in order to appreciate many of the controversial issues at stake in the Verizon v. RIAA dispute, it is important to understand certain aspects of the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architecture used in the sharing of files over the Internet. Hence, we begin our analysis with some brief remarks about the P2P architecture that facilitates file sharing across computer networks.

P2P networks

The P2P architecture is a network of "peer machines," each identified with an IP (Internet Protocol) address. In this scheme, there are no fixed clients and servers. Thus all nodes on the network are equal, and they can both send and receive packets, lending themselves to a peer-to-peer distribution model of exchanging and sharing information. While P2P networks facilitate person-to-person communication and file sharing, they also open the door to abuse as the hierarchical constraint of one server overseeing the network has been removed.

P2P networks like KaZaA and Grokster use software to facilitate the sharing of music. Their applications identify all nodes on their networks by their IP addresses, which are unique identifiers. The P2P infrastructure facilitates this transfer, as any node can theoretically "talk" to any other node on the network, but it also opens the network up to snooping. Unlike Napster, which used a centralized database, creating...