UK. Illegal downloaders spend the most on music

People who illegally download music from the internet also spend more money on music than anyone else, according to a new study, reports The Independent.

The survey, published today, found that those who admit illegally downloading music spent an average of £77 ($127) a year on music – £33 ($54) more than those who claim that they never download music dishonestly.

... An estimated seven million UK users download files illegally every year. The record industry's trade association, the British Phonographic Industry (BPI), believes this copyright infringement will cost the industry £200m ($330m) this year.

German musicians sue YouTube, their own fans

TechRadar reports that a group of 25 publishers, producers and musicians are asking that YouTube hand over server logs showing who uploaded, as well as watched, their material.

Apparently oblivious to the notion that they could target just such an online fan base with relevant advertising or even increase their popularity, the group, led by Hamburg lawyer Jens Schippmann, is claiming lost income from over 125 million page views on YouTube.

Whether or not the plaintiffs will actually be able to sue their own fans for that perceived lost money remains for the German authorities to decide before the complaint gets to court.

Music Stars Demand Records On Bush Administration's Use Of Music For Torture

Not related to cell phones. Just chilling. From The Huffington Post.

A group of prominent musicians are joining a campaign to close Guantanamo Bay and demanding the release of records about what music was used during the potential torture of detainees there and at other facilities.

... Hoping to cast further light on the potential illegalities that took place at the detention facility, the group is also working to obtain records about why and how music was used (under laws authorized by the Bush administration) to effectively torture suspected terrorists. The musicians have officially endorsed a Freedom of Information Act request for the declassification of all secret government records pertaining to music utilized during interrogations. At least two members of the coalition, Reznor and Morello, have had their music linked to interrogations.

Read full article

Verizon Needs No ‘Performance’ License for Ringtones

Verizon Wireless doesn’t need a public-performance license for ringtones it sells, a judge ruled, dealing a setback to the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), reports Bloomberg.

The company, the largest U.S. mobile carrier, doesn’t need such a license because the rings aren’t played in performances, U.S. District Judge Denise Cote in New York ruled yesterday.

... ASCAP and another licensing company, Broadcast Music Inc., charged for ringtones for years before wireless providers formally began challenging the practice two years ago.

Today’s ruling is the first on the issue. A decision on behalf of ASCAP might have generated millions of dollars annually for the groups’ members.

Read full article.

Related:

-- Verizon pays $5m to ASCAP for ringtone "performances"

-- ASCAP Sues AT&T Over Ringtones Heard In Public

-- ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings

Verizon pays $5m to ASCAP for ringtone "performances"

Verizon on Thursday took preemptive action and paid the music royalty group ASCAP $4.99 million as an "interim" license for cellular ringtones on its V CAST service. electronista reports.

The payment covers all ringtones bought since November 11th 2004 and is meant to temporarily settle the issue until the two settle a dispute over how much Verizon owes, if at all, for the short samples. It's unclear if the payment is reversible.

Read full article.

Lily Allen 'quits music' after abuse over file-sharing fight

Lily Allen has given up her fight against illegal file sharing and says she has quit the music business altogether after announcing on Twitter that "the abuse was getting too much". The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

This week, Allen launched a blog, "It's Not Alright", in which she slammed illegal downloading and threw her support behind plans by the British Government to disconnect music pirates from the internet.

Some of Britain's biggest musical stars - under the umbrella of the Featured Artists Coalition - had rejected the plan as being too draconian but Allen had the opposite view, saying file sharers were "cutting off income at the most crucial, cash-strapped point in [new artists'] careers".

However, she was soon mired in a copyright stoush of her own as a technology blog, Techdirt, accused her of reproducing parts of one of its articles on her blog without attribution.

Read full article.

Music piracy costs money; does fighting it cost more?

The major music labels say that they stand to lose £200 million this year in the UK alone thanks to Internet file-sharing. But one of the country's biggest ISPs is now slinging around some huge numbers of its own, saying it will actually cost ISPs £365 million a year to adopt "three strikes" rules meant to stem piracy.

[via ars technica]

Elton John backs crackdown on music piracy

Illegal filesharing is dividing the music world with Lily Allen and Elton John taking issue with a group called the Featured Artists Coalition, who include Annie Lennox and Billy Bragg. The Guardian reports.

Sir Elton John has come out in support of measures to crack down on music piracy by cutting off the internet connections of persistent illegal filesharers.

In a letter to the business secretary, Lord Mandelson, he said: "I am of the view that the unchecked proliferation of illegal downloading (even on a "non-commercial" basis) will have a seriously detrimental effect on musicians, and particularly young musicians and those composers who are not performing artists."

The letter comes as talks to heal a growing rift in the music industry over piracy broke down today , with a group of artists including Pink Floyd's Nick Mason, Billy Bragg and Tom Jones accusing labels of stubbornness.

Read full article.

Songwriters want to get paid for 30-second song previews

Songwriters, composers, and music publishers are lobbying Congress to legislate the payment of performance fees into downloaded music. If music publishers get their way, they'll be able to extract additional licensing fees from music downloads, movies, and TV shows containing their music, and even 30-second previews.

[via ars technica]

Filesharing crackdown divides UK music industry

Coalition of artists says moves to suspend offenders' broadband connections are like 'cracking a nut with a sledgehammer'. The Guardian reports.

Threat to sue over ringtones

Music composers are threatening legal action against companies that sell ringtones and do not compensate song writers. The National Organisation for Reproduction Rights in Music in Southern Africa gave cellular service providers until the end of last month to sign an agreement to pay over 7.5 percent from every downloaded song to the composers.

[via Business Report]

Group Sues AT&T Over Ringtones Heard In Public

Already ringtones are more expensive than a full-length song-and pay a higher royalty to the artist than a normal track-but the music industry is trying to make them even more profitable by arguing that someone should pay even more when the 30-second snippet plays in public. The Washington Post reports.

IDG News Service reports (via MacWorld) that AT&T, in particular, has been sued by ASCAP, asserting that ringtones qualify "as a public performance under the Copyright Act." The group wants mobile operators to pay royalties, not individual consumers.

The fight is playing out in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York. In the operator's defense the Electronic Frontier Foundation, joined by the CDT, argued that copyright law exempts performances that are conducted without a commercial purpose, such as ringtones in a restaurant.

Read Already ringtones are more expensive than a full-length song-and pay a higher royalty to the artist than a normal track-but the music industry is trying to make them even more profitable by arguing that someone should pay even more when the 30-second snippet plays in public.

Read full article.

Related:

-- ASCAP and Copyright Doublespeak

-- ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings

British music boss: we should have embraced Napster

Geoff Taylor, head of UK major label trade group BPI, wrote an op-ed piece for the BBC today in which he called Napster the "Rosetta Stone of digital music," said it was "simple to understand and use," and said that the music industry should have "embraced Napster rather than fighting it." ars technica reports.

According to Taylor, the world of 1999 wasn't ready for such a deal. "To make music fully and legally available on the internet meant clearing the rights in millions of tracks for a huge number of countries," he said, "agreeing how the revenue should be shared, implementing workable DRM (which everyone considered fundamental at the time), developing technology to track all the downloads for royalty purposes, as well as creating a quality user experience people would pay for."

Napster famously didn't bother about those things, and when it finally did get around to talking to the labels about actually compensating them and their artists for all that music being traded, the industry was insulted by the amounts offered.

Napster wasn't "prepared to pay fair royalties or to partner in a business model that could sustain investment in new music," said Taylor. That's too bad, since otherwise everything would have worked out great and we would now be living in a blanket-licensed digital music paradise.

Read full article.

ASCAP and Copyright Doublespeak

Just a few days ago, the EFF pointed out that ASCAP is arguing in federal court that every time your musical ringtone rings in public, you're violating copyright law by "publicly performing" it without a license.

Now, reports the EFF in a follow up article:

ASCAP has fired up its spin control machinery and issued a statement to Billboard, including this talking point, doubtless meant to be reassuring:

To be completely clear, ASCAP’s approach has always been to license these businesses – not to charge listeners/end-users.

This is an archetypal example of copyright doublespeak. What ASCAP should be saying is: "It's not infringing when your ringtone goes off in public." That's because the Copyright Act specifically provides in Section 110(4) that public performances "without any purpose of direct or indirect commercial advantage" are "not infringements of copyright."

Instead, ASCAP's statement essentially amounts to "you're all pirates, but don't fret, we'd never sue you for it, just every company that provides you with services."

Read full article.

Damages of $1.9 million could backfire on music industry

The recording industry secured a resounding victory last week when a Minneapolis jury awarded the four major labels $1.92 million in damages after unanimously finding that a 32-year-old mother had willfully infringed on their copyrights by downloading and sharing 24 songs on the Kazaa peer-to-peer network. Reuters reports.

But a question arose after the verdict about whether the sheer size of the damages could lead to a backlash against an industry that is already portrayed in some quarters as overreaching. Sony BMG attorney Wade Leak, who testified at the trial, said he was "shocked" by the damages award.

ASCAP Wants To Be Paid When Your Phone Rings

According to the EFF, ASCAP appears to believe that every time your musical ringtone rings in public, you're violating copyright law by "publicly performing" it without a license.

At least that's the import of a brief it filed in ASCAP's court battle with mobile phone giant AT&T.

This will doubtless come as a shock to the millions of Americans who have legitimately purchased musical ringtones, contributing millions to the music industry's bottom line. Are we each liable for statutory damages (say, $80,000) if we forget to silence our phones in a restaurant?

ASCAP's outlandish claim is part of its battle with major mobile carriers (including Verizon and AT&T) over whether ASCAP is owed any money for "public performances" of the musical ringtones sold by the carriers. The carriers point out that the owners of the musical compositions (i.e., songwriters and music publishers) are already paid for each ringtone download, but ASCAP claims that it's owed another royalty for the "public performances" (i.e., ringing in a restaurant) of those same ringtones.

Read full article.

Music Labels Win $2 Million in Web Case

The Universal Music Group, owned by Vivendi, and other record labels were awarded $1.92 million on Thursday in the retrial of a Minnesota woman accused of swapping music over the Kazaa Internet service. Bloomberg reports.

The federal jury in Minneapolis said the woman, Jammie Thomas-Rasset, 32, of Brainerd, should pay $80,000 for each of the 24 songs that were posted on the site so others could download them.

The first time the case went to trial, in 2007, a jury awarded $9,250 a song, or $222,000.

The Recording Industry Association of America brought more than 35,000 legal actions against people it claimed were illegally sharing music before changing its policy in December. This is the only case that has gone to trial.

Judge Michael J. Davis of United States District Court threw out the first verdict, saying he had given the jury incorrect instructions.

After the verdict, Ms. Thomas-Rasset, a natural resources coordinator for the Mille Lacs Band of the Ojibwe, said she was disappointed that she had not been able to convince the jury that she had not posted the songs. “The only thing I can say is good luck trying to get it, because you can’t get blood out of a turnip.”

“The disproportionate size of the verdict raises constitutional questions,” said Fred von Lohmann, a lawyer with the consumer group Electronic Frontier Foundation, which has criticized the music industry’s tactics.

At the four-day trial, lawyers for Ms. Thomas-Rasset argued that the labels could not prove that she had posted the songs on the Kazaa file-sharing site.

Pirated pop keeps stars popular

According to a study by industry body PRS for Music, file-sharing sites help make popular acts more popular. The BBC reports.

The most pirated pop songs tend to be those at the top of the music charts.

However there was little evidence that file-sharing sites helped unsigned and new bands find an audience.

The study suggests file-sharing sites are becoming an alternative broadcast network comparable to radio stations as a way of hearing music.

New Income Source for Musicians, Songwriters and Publishers

A company called DataRevenue.Org is looking to monetize the use of copyrighted material when it is transferred from one mobile user to another. Music Industry News reports.

Current copyright laws do not address data specifically because multimedia messaging, (mms) is a fairly new technology. DataRevenue.Org has licensed technology that will enable its members to "data optimize" their content to traverse existing data infrastructures like 3g and also those which are currently being developed, mobile2mobile.

Read full interview with the organization’s founder, Max Davis.

Ringtone website at odds with record labels, phone carrier

Deerfield Beach-based Myxer.com allows users to download and create their own ringtones and other mobile content for free. Users can also upload their content to share with others, and lesser-known artists have embraced it to market their music by offering ringtones and wallpapers. The Miami Herald reports.

But the past few months have been complicated for Myxer. In June, several major music labels, including Virgin Records and Sony BMG Music Entertainment, filed a lawsuit against Myxer, because it is possible for users to upload and share music that they don't own the rights to. In the same month, Verizon blocked its customers from getting Myxer content sent from the website directly to their phones because not all the content met Verizon's standards.

Read full article.

AT&T exec: ISP will never terminate service on RIAA's word

The ISP says there is a lot of misinformation swirling about letters it sent to customers but wants to make it clear: there will be no disruptions of service.

[via News.com]

Related: - AT&T first to test RIAA antipiracy plan

AT&T first to test RIAA antipiracy plan

Cnet news reports from a digital music conference in Nashville where Jim Cicconi, a senior executive for AT&T told the audience that the ISP has begun issuing takedown notices to people accused of pirating music by the RIAA, according to one music industry insider who was present.

Representatives of the RIAA and AT&T could not be reached late Tuesday evening for comment.

Related:

-- Sarkozy move to punish illegal downloaders sparks liberties row

-- UK Anti-piracy plan to make ISPs liable for illegal downloads

-- Illegal downloaders 'face UK ban'

-- Hollywood Wants Internet Providers to Block Copyrighted Files

-- French plan e-mail warnings for illegal downloads

-- France set to cut Web access for music, film pirates

Universal Music Group Beats Eminem Suit

Universal Music Group announced they won a jury verdict over digital royalties in a lawsuit brought by FBT Productions LLC, who worked with rapper Eminem early in his career. According to a source at Universal, the jury's verdict was unanimous. Billboard reports.

The Bass Brothers' FBT Productions and Joel Martin's Em2M filed a lawsuit in May 2007 against Aftermath Records, Interscope Records and others over the split of digital royalties due for Eminem's recordings. The suit claimed that the labels should be paying half of the net receipts from downloads and master ringtones rather than the lesser artist royalty rate based on sales.

Related:

-- Eminem settles ringtones action (2006)

-- Eminem bid to block net ringtones (2006)

-- Eminem begins ringtone legal action (2005)

Copyright Dispute Continues Over Mobile Phone Music Files

Copyright agencies have again suffered a setback in efforts to secure greater royalties from music files copied to mobile phones. YLE News Finland reports.

The government decided at the turn of the year that no separate royalties would be levied this year on the copying of films and music for private use. At present, compensation takes the form of an additional fee added to the price of blank CD and DVD discs, digital set-top boxes and mp3 players.

Read full a rticle.

Nokia Comes With (Illegal) Music In Vietnam?

Copyright watchdog Recording Association of Vietnam (RIAV) has reportedly filed a $3 million lawsuit against FPT Telecom and Nokia Vietnam for violating intellectual property rights. RIAV, which represents 60 music production companies throughout Vietnam, is suing both companies over allegations of copyright infringement of recorded music.

Full article in TechCrunch.

Why are we paying phone companies billions for ringtones?

Ringtones, a market that didn't exist 10 years ago, have become a revenue stream for cellphone providers that they cling onto with unparalleled ferocity. DVICE on why ringtones have become big business, and how you can beat the system.

Interesting and related to copyright protections, "The reason why we all have to pay so much for ringtones has to do, as always, with copyrights and royalties. When you download a song, you pay 9 cents in royalties. However, a recent ruling bumped the royalty for ringtones up to 24 cents per song."

Japanese mobile music site admins arrested for infringement

In the US, the RIAA has a huge job on its hands policing people's computer use, but the Recording Industry Association of Japan is far more concerned with mobile phones when it comes to copyright infringement. That's because Japanese music lovers acquire new tunes on their handsets, not from their laptops. ars technica reports.

The RIAJ has announced that two men from Hyogo were taken into custody by police for running a mobile music download sites called "Daisan Sekai" ("The Third World")-

They had no license to offer their tracks, although it's not clear from the announcement whether Daisan Sekai was a money-making venture or simply a file download hub.

The site attracted more than a million unique users and is regarded by the RIAJ as "one of the most popular illegal mobile music site[s]" in the country.

Music fans back legal downloads

Music pirates can be deterred by warnings from their internet service provider (ISP), suggests a survey by Entertainment Media Research (EMR), reports the BBC.

"Almost 75% of music pirates would stop if told to by their ISP, the survey of 1,500 UK consumers found.

The research looked at the digital habits of consumers and found that the abundance of online music services was convincing many to go straight.

Just over half of those questioned said they got music from legal subscription sites, or those supported by ads. "

Image from dotstuff.

Government Price Fixing Won’t Fix Music Business

The New York Times Bits Blog on the decision by the Copyright Royalty Board to impose a standard royalty rate on music sold as ring tones.

"... Until now, those rates were negotiated individually between ring tone sellers and the publishers.

The board set a rate of 24 cents, higher even than the publishers had asked for. This means that the government has basically endorsed the current pricing scheme that sets the value of ring tones at $2 to $3. "

Read full article.

Music stars unite to seek control

Acts including Robbie Williams and Radiohead join a coalition called The Featured Artists' Coalition to try to gain ownership and control of their music from record labels. The BBC reports.

"It wants artists to keep the rights to the music they create and to have a greater say in how their songs are sold - and a bigger slice of the takings.

It is a sign of a shift in power in the music industry in the digital age."

Royalty rate doesn't change for Apple, music retailers

The Copyright Royalty Board on Thursday froze the rate that digital-music stores such as iTunes and RealNetworks' Rhapsody must pay music publishers.

News.com reports, "the three-member board that sets statutory copyright licenses e-mailed the Digital Media Association (DiMA), the National Music Publishers' Association, Apple, and other download stores with its decision to keep the royalty rate at 9.1 cents a song.

The board also set the same rate for CDs and established a 24-cent rate for ringtones. The decision is the first time the board has established royalty rates for digital downloads. The rates are set for the next five years.

What all this means of course is that Apple will not be shuttering iTunes -- as if there was ever much of a chance of that--and appears to remain very much in control over the economics of digital music. "

Music Groups Reach Deal

Five trade organizations that represent record labels, music publishers, songwriters and online music companies said Tuesday they had reached an agreement on how to calculate certain royalties that had been a source of contention between the music industry and online services.

The trade organizations involved in the agreement are the Recording Industry Association of America, the National Music Publishers Association, the Songwriters Guild of America, the Nashville Songwriters Association International and the Digital Media Association.

[via The Wall Street Journal]

Supreme Court Upholds Canadian Ringtone Royalty Payments

Canada's Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal against a court case which requires ringtone sellers to make back-payments for ringtones sold between 2003-05.

The Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) and two mobile operators had tried to appeal on a technical issue - but the Supreme Court decided not to hear the appeal. As is usual in these situations, the court does not explain its reasoning.

[via Cellular News]

South African Ringtone Seller Sued Over Royalty Payments

South African mobile content reseller, Exactmobile has denied claims that it is not paying royalties on the ringtones it sells.

The National Organisation for Reproduction Rights in Music in Southern Africa (NORM) filed the allegations, although Exactmobile says that it has a legal agreement in place with the royalties body.

[via Cellular News]

Net firms in music pirates deal

Six of the UK's biggest net providers have agreed a plan with the music industry to tackle piracy online, reports the BBC.

"The deal, negotiated by the government, will see hundreds of thousands of letters sent to net users suspected of illegally sharing music.

But the music industry wants people's internet cut off if they ignore repeated warnings, something the web firms say they are not prepared to do.

The six firms are due to be named when the deal is officially confirmed later."

Airport scans for illegal downloads on iPods, mobile phones and laptops

iPods, mobile phones and laptops could be examined by airport customs officials for illegal downloads under strict new counterfeiting measures being considered by G8 governments this week, it is claimed. The Telegraph reports.

"The measures form part of an international agreement aimed at stamping out piracy, but there are fears that individuals who have illegally downloaded songs or video clips on to MP3 players and phones for personal use could also be caught out.

They coincide with plans by the European Parliament for Internet Service Providers to be held liable if their users download illegal content, and in extreme cases, forced to disconnect people who are doing so."

Image from PCWorld

MEPs back contested telecoms plan

European politicians have voted in favour of amendments to telecoms law which campaigners say could be used to curb privacy online and file-sharing.The BBC reports.

"Digital rights groups in Europe have formed a loose coalition to highlight their opposition to the amendments.

But MEPs have denied that the amendments are aimed at throwing file-sharers off the net. MEP Malcolm Harbour, who helped oversee the so-called Telecoms Package, said it was "about improving users' rights".

... But campaigners say one of the amendments - which could allow governments to decide which software can be used on the web - makes it easier to enforce the controversial "three strikes" law which the music industry is keen to use in order to clamp down on file-sharers."

EMI and Infospace Reach Settlement on Ringtone Royalties Lawsuit

EMI has settled its ringtone royalties lawsuit with Infospace reports MocoNews, though the terms were not disclosed.

"It did disclose the settlement in an SEC filing late yesterday. Infospace was sued by the music label in early 2007, to the tune of $100 million for underpaying royalties on using its music for ringtones.

... EMI’s publishing also alleged InfoSpace was selling expressly restricted songs, such as John Lennon’s “Imagine,” and selling ringtones in worldwide markets where it had not been granted license. Since then Infospace has closed down or disposed off its mobile content related businesses."

Letters go to music file-sharers

Virgin Media has sent about 800 letters to customers warning them that they should not be downloading illegal music files via file-sharing sites. The BBC reports.

"It is part of a 10-week campaign it is running in conjunction with the BPI to "educate" users about downloads.

The BPI, the body which represents the UK record industry, told the BBC that "thousands more letters" would be sent.

Its stricter stance on illegal downloaders might result in some ISPs being taken to court, it told BBC News."

EFF attacks foundation of entire RIAA lawsuit campaign

In a filing in the Jammie Thomas file-swapping case in Minnesota, the Electronic Frontier Foundation argues that the entire basis of the RIAA's legal campaign is fatally flawed.

[via ars technica]

Tough stance

The music industry responds to criticisms of their anti-piracy policy.

On 9 June, BBC commentator Bill Thompson wrote a critique of a joint venture between the BPI (British Phonographic Industry) and Virgin Media to write to customers whose net connection may have been used to download unlicensed content.

Here, BPI chief executive Geoff Taylor responds to his comments. ....

[via BBC]

Federal judge sets formula for Internet music royalties

A federal court on Wednesday established a formula for determining the Internet royalties owed to thousands of music composers, writers and publishers by three major online services — Yahoo Inc., AOL and RealNetworks Inc.

Under the formula endorsed by U.S. District Judge William Conner's, AOL owed 2006 fees of $5.95 million and Yahoo owed $6.76 million.

... "This historic decision, for the first time, provides a clear framework for how the online use of musical works should be appropriately valued," said John LoFrumento, ASCAP's chief executive.

[via the Associated Press]

Home copying - burnt into teenage psyche

More than half of young people copy the songs on their hard drives to friends and even more swap CD copies, according to research that reveals the huge challenge home copying poses to a music industry already battling internet file-sharing, reports The Guardian.

"Three decades after cassette decks first allowed people to make free music tapes for friends, a study by the industry group British Music Rights suggests home copying remains just as ingrained in UK culture.

The industry's anti-piracy efforts have largely focused on illegal online music swapping - with estimates suggesting only one in 20 digital downloads is paid for. But the online problem is potentially dwarfed by "offline copying", argues BMR. Its research, carried out by the University of Hertfordshire, suggests that, for 18-24-year-olds, home copying remains more popular than file sharing. Two-thirds of people it surveyed copy five CDs a month from friends."

Chinese Firms Face the Music On Downloads

A Chinese court has agreed to consider copyright-infringement cases against two China-based Internet heavyweights that offer illicit music downloading, potentially opening Chinese companies to hefty damage claims they have previously dodged.

The music-industry lawsuits claim $9 million in damages against and $7.5 million against Sogou, the music-delivery service operated by Sohu.com.

... While the dollar amounts are small because they are based on claims of infringement for just a few hundred songs, this is the highest amount the music industry has sued for in China.

[via The Wall Street Journal]

Courts disagree on legality of uploading

Leaving a copyrighted song where others can get at it with peer-to-peer software doesn't constitute a copyright violation until someone downloads it, a federal judge said in a record industry lawsuit against college students. [via the Associated Press]

"The Boston judge's comments in a Monday pretrial ruling conflict with statements, also made Monday, by a New York federal judge that leaving a copyrighted file accessible could be illegal, even if nobody downloads it.

At issue in both cases is whether people who initially download or own copyrighted music are legally liable if they leave music files accessible to be shared by others. Peer-to-peer sharing services allow computer users to make files on their PCs available to a multitude of other users."