Copyright Infringement Induced By P2P Technology And The Countermeasures To Protect Against It

In recent year, with the research and development of P2P technology, the P2P technology is affecting our lives profoundly. Undoubtedly, the changes brought by P2P technology, having the advantages of the files collecting, multitude parts downloading and mutual transportation, are gigantic, and this technology realizes the direct resources sharing and communication between the end users completely and provides an Internet space equally. Nevertheless, P2P technology triggers serious social and legal problem while proving significant convenient for the internet users at the same time the usages of P2P technology on the copyrighted works by a large number users infringe the benefits of the writers as well as impact the copyright. From the technical structure of P2P, it can be inferred that there are mainly two kinds of infringers involved. One is the clients, while the other is the software and Internet service provider. The owner of copyright is conferred with exclusive rights to do certain acts, including reproducing the work in a material form, publishing it, communicate it to the public and so on. It should be reached how to revise the copyright law to maintain the interest of the writers without hinting the development of science and technology.In the first section is about the summarization and characteristics about the P2P technology. It explain that the widely usage of P2P technology cause the wide infringement of the writers' interest and the more difficulty of administration. Furthermore, this part introduces the cases caused by the usages of P2P technology.The second section is mainly about the legislation, including the WTO, the revision of copyright in the developed countries and our country. It expounds the basic theory and comparison about the direct infringement and collateral infringement.The third section is about the properties about direct infringement and indirect infringement and expounds the action by using several renowned cases, such as the Napster and Grokster cases. It also analyzes the P2P technology and copyright infringement in our country.The fourth section is about related law environment and measurement about the infringement of P2P technology. It also analyzes the possible legislation improvement about P2P technology. At last the author gives the suggestion that is to set up indirect system to protect the legitimate profit of copyright owners and put copyright compensation in practice to balance the interest among copyright owners, suppliers of P2P software and users.