Michele Armellini ID 203828

University of Trento

Summary 3

1 File sharing
In copyright infringements, we can see two different roles people could have:

• The end user: does the direct infringement by either accessing the material or sharing
it with others

• The mediator: can be a p2p provider which does not violate copyright directly but
allows it to be violated on his platform.

While copyright infringement is a violation of law and downloading certainly violates copy-
right, it does not really affect sales and it doesn’t really make sense to punish the downloader
of a certain file. For music there have been numerous techniques in the years. At the begin-
ning it had a small impact on sales, with people copying the tapes analogically. With the
computers being more common services as Napster were created, allowing people to share
music. It supposedly damaged some artists whose songs were distributed before they were
officially released but benefited others. In 1998 the DMCA was created, it’s a set of rules fo-
cused on technology for circumventing Digital Rights Management that protects copyrighted
material. With Napster being closed different new platforms have been born such as Pirate
bay, a torrent file search engine, or MegaUpload, a website created for file sharing. Not all new
platforms are used for illegal music sharing though, services such as Spotify were also created,
where people can stream licensed music by paying a monthly fee or listening to ads between
songs. There are some downsides to it since several artists complained for not receiving any
revenue from Spotify.

2 Software Patents
Patents are legal tools for granting exclusive rights to an inventor. They are limited in time
and space(usually granted by a state) and require payment of a yearly fee. By definition they
should not apply to software ( E.G. ”European patents shall be granted for any inventions
which are susceptible of industrial application, which are new and which involve an inventive
step.” but ”... (c) schemes, rules and methods for performing mental acts, playing games or
doing business, and programs for computers; ....” ”shall not be regarded as inventions”) In
the United States however almost all software is patent-able since 1990s. They also started
to become used not for protection but for prevention of innovation and competition by big
corporations.

1
Michele Armellini ID 203828

3 SaaS
Software as a Service is when a software is provided, like the name says, as a service meaning
other companies or a private citizen could access this software that is managed and ran
by someone else. Usually there can be three different financial models: Subscription where a
monthly fee is usually payed, Freemium where it is free where a simple free version is provided
and a more complex payed one, and free.
Using a SaaS, can help stabilize and lower the cost, the software is always updated and the
availability is guaranteed. However it has to always be used online and control of the data
and its protection is not in the hands of the owner anymore.

4 DRM Systems
There are several laws around the world that make the creation and distribution of a software
that circumvents DRM illegal. ( e.g. DMCA, European Directive 2001/29/EC or WIPO
Copyright Treaty 1996).