Solutions to P2P Copyright Crisis in Hong Kong

Abstract

My research question is how to fashion an appropriate legal solution to critical copyright problems created by the advent of P2P distribution technology in Hong Kong. My approach is to recommend revisions to copyright law in order to achieve a balance between various interests. The proposed legal solution will be designed to be implemented together with other non-legal solutions.To be specific, my research is to examine whether it is appropriate to hold P2P users criminally liable for P2P pirate usage, whether the copyright of Hong Kong should be amended to introduce a new legal liability for ISPs in the fight against Internet piracy, and if so, under what circumstances the liability of ISPs will arise.The theoretical framework of balance of interests will be the central theme of my research. Balance of interests is the underlying principle of the intellectual property law, especially in this digital environment. The main purpose of intellectual property laws is to strike a reasonable balance between authors' right to protect their works and the public interest in the free flow of information.As Associate Professor Li Yahong stated, P2P copyright infringement challenged balance of interests, a classic, eternal dilemma of copyright law. New copying technology is always disruptive to old copyright market where works are sold through well-established distribution mechanisms. As one of the copying technology innovations, P2P has broken the balance of interests which demands to be rebuilt immediately.My research will examine the balance of interests in three perspectives, the historical, market, and comparative institutional analysis, and then draw a conclusion that to what extent the legal solution should involve in solving this P2P crisis. Based on this conclusion, my research will compare the domestic legal system with others in foreign jurisdictions, in order to design a feasible legal solution to rebuild the broken balance of interests. P2P piracy is one of the greatest challenges faced by the copyright law today, and has been proven to be a true hydra for the entertainment industries, including recording, publishing, television, and motion picture industries. As every proposed solution has its own limitation, the outcome of my research will lead to a optimized combination of these solutions including a well-designed legal solution to rebuild balance of interests in P2P copyright crisis.One thing more significant is that the legal revisions in P2P solutions will serve as an important part of the new legal frame work of copyright protection in digital era. P2P technology is a good representative of the internet file-sharing technologies in the digital environment. With the fast technology development, more and more advanced file-sharing technologies will come out in a short time. The outcome of my research will not only provide solutions to P2P crisis, but also reform the copyright law to prevent future crises of up-coming file sharing innovations. The principles and methods set up in this research, like market analysis and comparative institutions analysis, can be utilized to examine other new internet services. Liability scope of the uploading and downloading activities will be determined and rules to pursuing secondary liability of ISPs will be figured out in my research.