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How many bytes of a file does it take for the copyright to be enforceable?

2 points by scrhoads ↗ HN
If people only served up a fraction of a copyrighted work(song/movie/picture), does the copyright apply? I'm not condoning illegal file sharing, but curious where the laws breaks down with digital media.

2 comments

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wmf
Classic must-read answer: http://ansuz.sooke.bc.ca/entry/23

My interpretation is that if it's possible for a user to download and reassemble the entire file (e.g. as in BitTorrent) and those who are serving the parts of the file know that, then the intent to infringe is evident.

scrhoads
I had some thoughts the other day about hosts each serving up a different yet static set of bytes, but not having any knowledge what they were being used for.

I quickly realised that whatever was mapping IP's to particular bytes was going to be wildly inefficient when stored, and probably just as illegal (if its illegal to distribute).

The focus of the idea was to keep the spirit of BitTorrent (at least what I think the spirit is) while relieving the risk for those willing to share their bandwidth and computer resources.

Excellent read; thanks for the article.