Peer-to-Peer File Sharing and Copyright: What Could Be the Role of Collective Management?

Whether originating from copyright scholarship or from legislative discussion, proposals to authorize the transfer of copyrighted works through peer-to-peer (“P2P“) networks have been abundant in the last ten years as an alternative to seemingly difficult to enforce and unsuccessful repression-based solutions. As Neil Netanel described it: P2P controversy is a story of the copyright industries‘ increasingly brazen— some say desperate—attempts to shut down P2P file-swapping networks, disable P2P technology and shift the costs of control onto third parties, including telecommunications companies, consumer electronics manufacturers, corporate employers, universities, new media entrepreneurs and the taxpayers