New Copyrighting Technologies and How They May Effect Current File-Sharing Communities

The heavyweights of the media industry have become aware of the proliferation of mass piracy on the internet via peer-to-peer file sharing technologies. Attempts to stop the piracy by legal action against the creators of the technology have only prompted the creation of smarter, decentralised file sharing systems. Including copyright protection systems on CD’s/DVD’s have only lead to development of techniques to circumvent them. Now the industry are trying to impose copyright protection mechanisms in the core systems of personal computers. This paper describes how little of an effect I believe these mechanisms will have on current file sharing communities.