Combatting the threat of cyber and P2P sharing to the economic stability of post-industrial nations

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1 Beijing Model United Nations 2015 XXII Forum: Issue: General Assembly Third Committee Combatting the threat of cyber and P2P sharing to the economic stability of post-industrial nations Student Officer: Jason Fu Position: Deputy Assistant President of General Assembly Third Committee Introduction The issue of combatting the threat of cyber and P2P sharing to the economic stability of post-industrial nations has been an issue ever since the debut of the first P2P sharing application. While P2P systems had been used in various application domains, it was popularized by P2P file sharing systems that allowed the sharing of music. As time went on and technology advanced, these P2P file sharing systems had evolved to have the capability to share not only music, but computer files such as documents, movies, applications, games etc. The reason why P2P file sharing systems have been recognized as a threat to the economic stability of post industrial nations has been because many if not all of the files being shared on these P2P sites break laws regarding the protection of intellectual property and illegal distribution of files and data. Such law breaking actions that P2P file sharing systems are what has been blamed and attributed to the decline in revenues of the music industry and other media industries. This is because P2P file sharing systems allow sharing copy righted files to unlimited amounts of people without the developers or artists of the original file receiving a single penny from the transaction. The media industry is suffering from the threat of cyber and P2P file sharing. Various combats against the threat have been attempted in the past, each with various results of success. But none has been able to fully address and eliminate the problem. This issue has once again come into the public attention after the recent hacks Sony has received. Definition of Key Terms P2P P2P refers to peer-to-peer, which is a type of computing or networking. Its use is to partition and distribute work load among peers. Each peer is equal and participates equally in the task. Peers are both suppliers and consumers of the resource; the resources could be processing power, disk storage, or even network bandwidth. The P2P networking allows distribution of resources without a centralized administrative system, unlike the traditional client-server model. Research Report Page 1 of 8

2 XXII Annual Session The Hague International Model United Nations 2015 Seeds Seeds or seeders are those that have completed a full download of the torrent and are now uploading. During a torrent, the amount of seeds is the amount of seeders there are, and the amount of seeds connected to are the amount of those peers that have completed a full download of torrent that are now uploading that are connected to you. Leeches Leeches or leechers are those that have not completely downloaded the torrent, but are downloading it. During a torrent, leechers are those who only download the torrent, but only offer little to no uploads of any resources. Torrent A torrent file is a file that stores metadata for torrent programs to use and download data into the computer. A bittorrent is a P2P protocol that uses the networking without a central server approach to file sharing. When a bittorrent is run on a torrenting client, it tells the client application to establish a connection to the tracker URL to receive a list of peers that are currently transferring pieces of the file. Economic Stability Economic stability is a term describing the stability of the economy. The stability is determined by the economy having a constant output growth and a low and stable inflation. Magnet Links A magnet link is a web link that contains the metadata that Bittorrent clients can use to start downloading the files. The use of magnet links is to reduce the amount of bandwidth needed to operate the site. If a torrent is one megabyte, magnet links can reduce the size to just one kilobyte. DDoS A distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack is essentially making a network or server s resources unavailable for its intended users. This is commonly caused by sending the target machine with external communications so much that the machine cannot respond to legitimate network traffic. Background The issue of combatting the threat of cyber and P2P file sharing to the economic stability of post-industrial nations has been an issue only since the debut of the first music-sharing site, Napster. The history of combatting the threat of cyber and P2P file sharing has been a short one, as the issue had not existed in an impactful size until it Page 2 of 8 Research Report

3 Beijing Model United Nations 2015 XXII was popularized by the P2P sharing Internet service, Napster, which debuted only in The founders of Napster ran into legal issues regarding copyright infringement and ceased operations on July of The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) sued Napster s file sharing ability of copyrighted material on December 7 th Ironically, it was also RIAA s decision to sue Napster that resulted in raising its popularity as the case resulted in a great deal of publicity. Napster failed to appeal to the Ninth Circuit Court, and an injunction was issued on March 5 th of 2001, ordering Napster to completely prevent the trading of copyrighted material on its network. Lawrence Lessig, an American academic and political activist has claimed the decision of the injunction made little sense. This was because Napster had told the district court that it had developed a technology to block 99.4 percent of identified infringed copyrighted material, yet the district court told council that 99.4 percent was not good enough and that Napster needed to bring the percentage to 100%. Lessig then stated, If 99.4 percent was not good enough, then this is a war on file sharing technologies, not a war on copyright infringement. However, the demise of Napster only led to the rise of other similar P2P file sharing sites such as Gnutella, Freenet, Kazaa, LimeWire, Scour, Grokster, Madster, edonkey2000 etc. Many of these similar P2P file sharing sites also faced similar legal issues and were therefore altered or ceased to operate. Examples A good example of recent attempts to combat P2P file sharing of copyrighted materials would be the police raid of The Pirate Bay (TPB), a Swedish online index of digital content offering magnet links and torrent files, went offline after a Swedish police raid on December 9 th TorrentFreak reported that with The Pirate Bay offline, other torrent websites received a 5 to 10 percent increase in visitor traffic from the displaced users of The Pirate Bay. Even with the raid and subsequent offline of The Pirate Bay, it had little impact to the overall amount of piracy levels. What s interesting about The Pirate Bay is that it received mixed reviews even from the producers or artists of copyright infringed material. Bjron Uvaeus, former member of the Swedish pop music group ABBA has criticized The Pirate Bay, saying the site was a gift to those who wanted to be lazy and mean. He also commented Is it really so damn difficult to pay your way? Conversely, this view is surprising not consistent to those who had their copyrighted material infringed and illegally shared. Paulo Coelho, author of The Alchemist and The Witch of Portobello, which sold more then 100 million books in 2007 has praised The Pirate Bay and called it what made his books so successful. Coelho claims that, Since the dawn of time, human beings have felt the need to share from food to art. Sharing is a part of the human condition. A person who does not share is not only selfish, but bitter and alone. Coelho even started uploading free copies of his own book on to various Bittorrent sites. Coelho knew that publishers of his book would not be supportive of his decision so he had to take matters into his own hand, but eventually even some publishers started to support him. Famous publisher Harper Collins decided to release a new book of Coelho s ever month for free. Coelho urges upcoming authors to do the same (releasing free electronic copies of their own books), as Coelho claims that this move would eventually help the author. However, when asked about the difference between piracy on books and piracy on music and movies, Coelho said it was difficult to compare. This is because reading a book electronically is not really the same as reading real paperback book; this could not be said for pirated music or movies. Research Report Page 3 of 8

4 XXII Annual Session The Hague International Model United Nations 2015 The Music Industry The music industry in the United States enjoyed a growth since 1990, with shipments generating 7.5 billion dollars. This amount peaked at 14.5 billion dollars in 1999, and then it saw a decline after that, to the 8.5 billion dollars in The decline coincided with the debut of Napster in The music industry holds unauthorized file sharing accountable for the 25 percent decline in music sales after 1999 (The year Napster debuted). The music industry also claimed that pirating music would be a threat to the long-term survivability of the industry and would also have a negative impact on the overall economy. The threat of P2P file sharing to the media industry is the free rider problem where free riders don't pay for the media product. The media industry claims that this may eventually lead to an under production of these goods, which would lead to market failure. The controversial idea that these P2P file sharing networks actually increase sales is based on the thought that P2P file sharing networks provides a good place for sampling these goods. The same thought and idea is made when music industries pay radio stations to play their music. Although the issue at hand here is combatting the threat of P2P file sharing to the economic stability of postindustrial nations, the issue may not even exist. This is because there has been evidence supporting that piracy does indeed pose a threat to the stability of the economy, yet there has also been evidence supporting that piracy increases sales of goods. Major Parties Involved P2P File Sharing Platforms Napster was one of the first P2P file sharing services, sharing only music. It debuted in Napster was not the first time P2P file sharing systems had been applied, but it was one of the sites that made P2P as popular as it is today. The case between Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and Napster was what made Napster extremely popular, especially among college students. Due to Napster s ability to share copyrighted music, it was sued and subsequently received a court injunction asking it to cease all operations that would allow file sharing copyrighted material on March 5 th of Due to Napster needing to comply with the court injunction, it officially shut off its services and went offline on July of The company later went bankrupt and its logo and name was acquired in an auction. It has now recently be released as a media player after it was acquired by Best Buy working with Rhapsody. Many companies have now followed Napster s P2P file sharing concept. The Pirate Bay (TPB) is an online Internet index of digital content. It is one of the most popular sites for torrenting movies, music, videos, applications, books and many other digital files. The site provides magnet links and torrent files for its visitors to torrent. The founders of the site were prosecuted and charged for violating Swedish copyright laws in The Pirate Bay had switched several top level domains due to the different legal issues it had faced, and had presumably changed from.com to.se to evade United States laws from taking over the site. The site s founders were trialed for administering the site, which facilitated copyright infringement of its users. Page 4 of 8 Research Report

5 Beijing Model United Nations 2015 XXII Post-industrial Nations Different countries have different laws on what is considered copyright infringement; these countries also have different punishments for the crime. Despite having laws and punishments, copyright infringement regarding P2P file sharing is very common, and theoretically the peers in the P2P are responsible for the copyright infringement, yet the average everyday P2P user that has torrented copyrighted material without paying is rarely prosecuted. In the United States, any violation of the terms of a copyright has committed copyright infringement, a crime. The punishment for the crime is that the original artist or producer of the good that was copyright infringed has the right to sue the violator. The monetary value of the crime in a lawsuit is whatever the jury decides as acceptable. In many countries The Pirate Bay is blocked, as it is generally believed that it facilitates copyright infringement, giving it secondary infringement liability. In contrast with the United States, Mexico has almost no laws on file sharing. However, Mexican legislators are considering a punishment of 20,000 dollars and ten years in jail for the violators. The Netherlands take a different approach, by legislating that reproduction of literature, art, or science is not considered a violation on the countries copyright laws, provided, that the reproduced good does not have a commercial motive, and its usage is personal, and it being limited in copies. South Korea gives the violators of copyright infringement in online piracy three strikes. After all three strikes are out, the violator could receive a punishment of a disconnect of Internet usage for six months. These are just some examples of how different countries deal with piracy of copyrighted material. Previous Attempts to Resolve the Issue Because the problem of combatting the threat of cyber and P2P file sharing to the economic stability of post industrial nations had not existed in impactful amounts before the debut of Napster in 1999, there had not been much previous attempts to resolve the issue, and the outcome of those resolutions are yet to be determined. Below are some noteworthy previous attempts to resolve the issue: MediaGuard, a now defunct company, was contracted by media firms to spread fake copies of files on various torrent sites and file sharing sites to disrupt the piracy of copyrighted material. However, MediaGuard faced some legal issues while uploading fake copies of files onto torrent and file sharing sites as it essentially caused a distributed denial of service on Revision3, a multichannel Internet television network. Sony s bad seed attack is similar, but not completely. Sony s recent release of bad seeds. Recently, Sony s servers have been hacked and many of its not released products were spread on to P2P networks available for torrent. Sony has decided to combat this threat by uploading bad seeds onto these P2P networks. These bad seeds would prevent the user from being able to use the media they have torrented as the media they have just torrented would be corrupted. These fake seeds are designed to have the same GoP file signature as the real torrents, this makes it harder for people to detect that it is a fake seed. The results of these fake seeds have not shown results yet as it was only recently embedded. The use of these seeds is only to let the users of torrents waste time on Research Report Page 5 of 8

6 XXII Annual Session The Hague International Model United Nations 2015 torrenting corrupted files, and does not actually punish them. It is said that the opportunity cost torrenting these fake seeds would probably exceed that of if people just went out and actually bought the good. Mentioned earlier was the South Korean way of stopping piracy, it was that each internet user gets three strikes when torrenting. When all three strikes were out, the user faces getting banned from using the Internet for six months. This method was thought of because South Korea use to require a full trial for prosecuting copyright infringers, but usually these copyright infringers are children who s parents are probably unaware of the situation, making full trials unfair. With this three strike law implemented, there is no longer the need of having a full trial for copyright infringers (the ones that torrent). The negatives of this is that any copyright infringing would give you a strike, even if it is harmless, therefore many internet users may get banned from the internet even if what they did may be harmless. Possible Solutions New technologies that can identify copyrighted files on P2P file sharing networks and/or are able to stop the file from being shared among peers. Perhaps a continuation on the technology Napster claims to have developed that is able to stop 99.4 percent of known pirated material. Calls on all member nations to enforce blocking torrent sites, much like what they have done for certain countries, China included. Maybe even something similar to the great firewall of China, except focusing on blocking P2P sites. A more well rounded and specialized version of the three strike system that makes sure no strikes are taken off for those not really infringing any copyright laws. The details and specifics could be discussed later Heavier penalties for those uploading to torrent sites as compared to those that are only downloading. This would be used to discourage uploads. No uploads would be no content, and therefore nothing for people to torrent. Further improve Sony s bad seed attack technologies. So far its said to be recognizable from the real files, but still authentic enough to fool those that are not watching carefully. Perhaps by increasing its authenticity would allow it to be more effective. Bibliography Beijnum, Iljitsch Van. "Dutch Government Study: Net Effect of P2P Use Is Positive." Ars Technica. Conde Nast, 20 Jan Web. 12 Jan < Page 6 of 8 Research Report

7 Beijing Model United Nations 2015 XXII Brinkmann, Martin. "So What Is a Torrent Exactly?" Ghacks.net. GHacks Technology News, 5 Aug Web. 12 Jan <http%3a%2f%2fwww.ghacks.net%2f2012%2f08%2f05%2fso-what-is-a-torrentexactly%2f>. "Efforts to Stop Music Piracy 'pointless'" BBC News. BBC, 22 Nov Web. 12 Jan < Ernesto. "BEST-SELLING AUTHOR TURNS PIRACY INTO PROFIT." Torrent Freak. Torrent Freak, 12 May Web. 12 Jan <https%3a%2f%2ftorrentfreak.com%2fbest-selling-author-turns-piracy-intoprofit %2f>. Feldman, Barbara J. "Economic Impact of P2P File Sharing." Surf Net Kids. Surf Net Kids, 2 June Web. 12 Jan <http%3a%2f%2fwww.surfnetkids.com%2ftech%2f1389%2feconomic-impact-of-p2p-filesharing%2f>. "File Sharing and The Law." Academic Computing And Media Sciences. UC SanDiego, n.d. Web. 12 Jan <http%3a%2f%2facms.ucsd.edu%2ffilesharing%2ffilesharing-law.html>. "File Sharing and The Law." Academic Computing And Media Sciences. UC SanDiego, n.d. Web. 12 Jan <http%3a%2f%2facms.ucsd.edu%2ffilesharing%2ffilesharing-law.html>. Gallagher, Sean. "Sony Fights Spread of Stolen Data by Using bad Seed Attack on Torrents." Ars Technica. Conde Nast, 12 Dec Web. 12 Jan <http%3a%2f%2farstechnica.com%2ftechpolicy%2f2014%2f12%2fsony-fights-spread-of-stolen-data-by-using-bad-seed-attack-on-torrents%2f>. Goel, Sanjay, Paul Miesing, and Uday Chandra. "The Impact of Illegal Peer-to-Peer File Sharing on the Media Industry." California Management Review 52.3 (2010): University At Albany. University At Albany, Web. 12 Jan < Sharing%20on%20the%20Media%20Industry.pdf>. Lindenberger, Michael A. "Internet Pirates Face Walking the Plank in Sweden." Time. Time Inc, 20 Feb Web. 12 Jan Research Report Page 7 of 8

8 XXII Annual Session The Hague International Model United Nations 2015 <http%3a%2f%2fcontent.time.com%2ftime%2fbusiness%2farticle%2f0%2c8599%2c %2c00.html>. Masnick, Mike. "South Korea Implements New Copyright Law; ISPs Ban P2P Ads; File Sharers Get Summary Trials." Techdirt. Floor64, 29 July Web. 12 Jan < Masnick, Mike. "South Korea The Latest To Introduce Three Strikes Plan Techdirt." Techdirt. Floor64, 11 Mar Web. 12 Jan < Meyer, David. "Google: P2P and Legal Music Sharing Both Getting More Popular in UK." ZD Net. CBS Interactive, 3 July Web. 12 Jan <http%3a%2f%2fwww.zdnet.com%2farticle%2fgooglep2p-and-legal-music-sharing-both-getting-more-popular-in-uk%2f%23!>. Minow, Mary. "Solving the P2P Problem An Innovative Marketplace Solution by Rob Kasunic." Stanford Copyright and Fair Use Center Solving the P2P Problem An Innovative Marketplace Solution by Rob Kasunic Comments. Stanford University Libraries, 11 Mar Web. 12 Jan < "P2P & Illegal File Sharing FAQ." P2P & Illegal File Sharing FAQ. The College of New Jersey, n.d. Web. 12 Jan < "P2P Illegal File Sharing Guidelines." Information Technology. The College of New Jersey, n.d. Web. 12 Jan <http%3a%2f%2fit.tcnj.edu%2fprocedures%2fp2p-illegal-file-sharing-guidelines%2f>. "P2P/File Sharing." Life Lock. Life Lock Inc, Feb Web. 12 Jan <http%3a%2f%2fwww.lifelock.com%2feducation%2fcomputers-and-technology%2ffile-sharing%2f>. "Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and Copyright Law." Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and Copyright Law. Trustees of Dartmouth College, n.d. Web. 12 Jan < Page 8 of 8 Research Report