Induce Act paper, with background, pro, con, and conclusion, and works cited.

Essay by blackvirusHigh School, 10th gradeA+, April 2005

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Do Companies Induce Crime?

The Disagreement on the Inducing Infringement of Copyrights Act

Background

From the invention of the first floppy disc, to the file transfer protocol, to Napster, there have always been ways to transfer and share files. Moreover, following these innovations, there have always been copyright holders trying to receive their rightful earnings.

In the early days of the Internet, the most popular file sharing method was the file transfer protocol (FTP). An anonymous FTP server is a server in which a user can login with an anonymous account to upload or download files. The user can search the entire server for the files that they want, and usually could find everything that they needed from one server. From 1995 to 1997, FTP file sharing became the most common way to share files.

Starting in the late 1990s, messenger programs became the common way to share files.

Although originally intended for merely chatting, these programs could be used to share music and other illegal files. The first of these programs was Internet Relay Chat (IRC). IRC was a moderately complex program to use, and thus it did not attract many followers, save for a select few. Later, AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) and "I Seek You" (ICQ) came out, creating a relatively easy alternative for sharing files. However, without blazing fast Internet speeds, a massive shift to piracy was not triggered. It was not until programs specifically tailored to file sharing came out, that many more individuals started to download and share files.

In 1999, Napster became the universal way to share files. Napster changed the way of sharing files with others, because the service let peers download music files from one another, and had a centrally located server that coordinated all of the searches being executed by...