비트토렌트를 이용한 온라인상의 저작권 침해행위와 그 대응방안에 관한 연구 -최근 국내에서의 비트토렌트 이용 양태를 중심으로- = Copyright Infringement using BitTorrent

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Since a long time ago, copyright infringement commonly occurs on a online network. By the way, it was assumed a new aspect when high-speed Internet services spreaded. It was a radical change; P2P(Peer-to-Peer) file sharing began. This change made an explosive increase of online file sharing. Today BitTorrent, as known as Torrent, is one of the most common way to share files with P2P. However, A study which analyzed famous open torrent tracker showed two thirds of all traffic was generated by BitTorrent. In addition, in 2011, the percentage of illegal copies which distributed in Korea was 29.3%. Taking this data into consideration, BitTorrent can be mentioned as a typical hotbed of copyright infringement. BitTorrent is a P2P file sharing protocol; It used for distributing large amounts of data over the Internet efficiently. BitTorrent is an alternative to distribute data, and can work over network with low bandwidth and small computers. Using this protocol, the file is divided into pieces to be distributed. A download with BitTorrent differs from a classic download. BitTorrent makes many requests to different machines and downloads very effectively. For example, BitTorrent downloads in a random or in a rarest-first policy. BitTorrent users open a metadata file with BitTorrent cilents to begin file sharing. Metadata is contained in a .torrent extension files (as known as Seed files) or BitTorrent-info-hash magnet links. The point is that there is no information about the content of the target file. Simply, a BitTorrent metainfo file is data about a target file. There is no way without BitTorrent metainfo data to share files over the network, and this features the method of BitTorrent protocol from the typical way of P2P file sharing. For all that, BitTorrent has a great deal of weight to share illegal copies, therefore I feel keenly the necessity of study for legal issues with BitTorrent. There is an infringement of public transmission right when a BitTorrent user shares metainfo which contains information about a illegal copy and shares the whole target file. There is also a copyright infringement when a BitTorrent user shares just metainfo, not the target file. In this case, there is a responsibility for aiding and abetting of the copyright infringement, because the user could forecast that somebody downloads easily the illegal copy through the metainfo. BitTorrent metainfo contains no information about the content of the target file, so a administrator of a BitTorrent data website who does not seed torrents can avoid problems of an infringement of public transmission right. The administrator, however, was put responsibility as a online service provider by copyright law §102 and as a special online service provider by copyright law §104. To prevent copyright infringements, these actions are required; an active monitoring, copyright-observance campaign, giving a user who shares an illegal copy disadvantages. Finally, cutting the reverse function of BitTorrent to the purpose and developing the proper function of the protocol are necessary for cultural prosperity with spreading of healthiness contents like as a virtuous circle.