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A local court November 2005 ruled in favor of the music industry in a dispute with Internet companies providing file-swapping services, touching off a heated debate on balancing consumer rights and intellectual property. The Seoul Central District Court gave the Korean Association of Phonogram Producers (KAPP), a music industry lobby, further protection against the unauthorized downloading of music when it ruled that Internet company Soribada (www.soribada.com) should abandon its current free service model in accordance with copyright protection laws.

Soribada runs the country’s largest peer-to-peer network with more than 5 million subscribers and 400,000 users. The KAPP filed a lawsuit last November for an injunction to bar Soribada from providing about 67,000 songs on its network that are copyrighted by the music lobby’s member labels.

In the ruling, the court went a step further by announcing that it will now be illegal for Internet users to distribute Soribada’s file-sharing software and share music files with existing peer-to-peer programs, basically ordering a complete halt to the Internet company’s current services. "The defendant admitted that it is impossible to control individuals from uploading and downloading music files on its network. We order a suspension of Soribada’s services and the distribution of its programs to guard against the infringement of copyrights." the court said.

The court ruling stands in line with the intentions by policymakers to strengthen the protection of copyrights.

In February, the government enforced a new law that bans individuals or companies from sharing copyrighted music without the consent of record companies, barring the trading of music files through peer-to-peer software, e-mail or web logs. However, the court’s decision is likely to spark controversy over how much Internet companies should be held responsible for the actions of individual users. A Soribada employee told The Korea Times that the company is considering appealing the court’s ruling. "Soribada is no longer a separate program running through a single server. It is now more of a technology that is spread over the Web. It’s hard to say if anybody should acquire full control over such activities." he said.
The local recording industry has been arguing that the unauthorized downloading of files has been hurting sales. It pointed out that the advent of online file-sharing is co-related with a decrease in music sales. But critics say that the causal link does not exist. Online file-sharing through peer-to-peer networks has become an increasingly contentious issue in Korea, where more than 70 percent of households have an Internet connection.

According to the Samsung Economic Research Institute, the digital music market first overtook the size of the offline market in 2003, when it reached over 190 billion won. However, critics are skeptical of how far record companies could push their campaign to reduce illegal music downloads. They point out that the demise of the CD-based music market has more to do with a loss of market share than to individual peer-to-peer activities, with sales from Web sites and telecom operators replacing a large part of the traditional market. And with major Internet portals and mobile-phones operators, such as SK Telecom, providing customers unlimited access to music files for just 5,000 won per month, some question why recording companies are trying to pin most of the blame on random individuals using peer-to-peer sites.

"I personally think that the court went too far. The advancement in peer-to-peer technology has given consumers more power to distribute products, which is a new environment that the music industry must adapt to." said Lee Dong-san, an official from the civic group Cultural Action. The KAPP, of which members include major record companies such as Yedang Entertainment and Doremi Media, has been involved in a similar dispute with Bugs Music (www.bugsmusic.co.kr), an internet site that allowed users to listen to music for free but not download it. After a series of legal disputes, Bugs Music ended up selling 60 percent of its company to a group of recording companies and gave up its management rights with a KAPP senior official stepping in to head operations.

Question
1. Have you ever used peer to peer services?
If you have, what kind of it? and how many times a week do you use it?
2. Do you agree or disagree with the court's decision to limit the Soribada?
3. There have been many arguments about 'Copyright' in free file sharing tools,
how do you think about copyright? share your opinion about it
4. What is the problem of 'Free peer to peer services'?
What do you think should be reformed?

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