THE LAW OF WAREZ TRADING

摘要

Warez trading, the non-commercial hobby of collecting and trading copyrighted works (particularly software), has been singled out as a major cause of online piracy. Recently, several government agencies have claimed that warez traders generate more than 90 percent of the online supply of infringing material. However, warez trading is hardly new, and legal efforts to control warez trading have been going on for a decade. In 1994, David LaMacchia, a student who operated a bulletin board service for exchanging copyrighted software, was the first person criminally prosecuted for warez trading. At the time, criminal copyright infringement required infringement for commercial advantage or private financial gain. Because LaMacchia did not have a commercial motive, the government prosecuted him for conspiracy to commit wire fraud instead of criminal copyright infringement. However, a US Supreme Court case had already declared that copyrighted works were not capable of being taken by fraud, so the judge quickly dismissed the case.