One of the most severe issues of the past few years is, at least for the content producers, either movie studios, recording labels or software developers, the copyrights infringement problem, in whatever form it might manifest itself.

This phenomenon is quite widespread at global level, causing huge losses for the producers. Indeed, it�s much simpler (and obviously cheaper) to access one of the many file-sharing programs available at this moment, as for example Kazaa, BitTorrent or DC++ (although the latest is generally used in metropolitan networks), and download whatever you�re interested in, whether it�s that new song you�ve heard last night in the club, the latest movie running in theaters or that super-cool game all your friends are talking about.

These P2P (peer to peer) networks allow the direct connection between several computers and the transfer of files between them, thus being the perfect environment for sharing illegal files. However, they are also a very good environment for the spreading of viruses, but also a path towards your computer that the hackers could exploit. You might not realize this immediately, especially if you don�t have a firewall or you�re using Windows XP SP2�s embedded one, but there are a lot of people with malicious intentions out there, who spend their time trying to read IP�s or find backdoors to computers. But these are the risks that each user choosing this method in order to access the contents he�s interested in has to live with.

The problem is, as I�ve said in the beginning, that the big music and movie companies are loosing money due to these practices. A lot of money. And that is why they have decided to take some measures against this phenomenon.

Thus, in the United States has been issued the first court ruling against a company that promoted the transfer of copyright-infringing files. The "MGM vs. Grokster" case has had a lot of media coverage, especially due to its importance for the future of file-sharing. As you might remember, the U.S. Supreme Court has decided that the companies Grokster and StreamCast were guilty of having promoted the theft of copyrighted property. The two companies have developed file-sharing programs, and have used quite openly the idea that they could be used for transferring copyright-infringing files in their advertising campaigns. However, the most important effect of the court�s ruling was that for the first time, these practices have been associated with theft. This gives birth to some very interesting prospects for the future, because now just about any P2P user can be the target of a lawsuit.

And we didn�t have to wait too long for this to happen. Thus, only a few days after the judges� decision, the Recording Industry Association of America has filed lawsuits against 784 Kazaa, Grokster and LimeWire users, which were accused of having transferred copyright infringing files.

You might ask yourselves why someone would use such a program (even though this question is quite a rhetorical one). First of all, it�s quite clear that this is a cheaper solution, practically the only thing that one has to pay being his Internet subscription. But it�s also a psychological problem. Why should you pay for something when you can get it for free?

Another interesting aspect of this phenomenon is the way in which it propagates. Thus, a large number of P2P users are students, for whom the sharing of illegal files has become something as common as, for example, parties in the frat houses. Thus, according to a BSA (Business Software Alliance) study, two thirds of the college and university students regard this phenomenon as something normal, and 61% of the students have never or almost never paid for software. Moreover, it�s quite clear that they won�t abandon their habits after graduation, the same BSA study pointing out the fact that 52% of the respondents consider that downloading copyrighted files at the workplace without paying any money for is also normal.

But is there anything that can be done in order to stop this phenomenon? For now, it looks like there are two different approaches to the way this problem can be dealt with. Either to file lawsuits against all the perpetrators, or to offer a cheaper alternative to the current premium services, as Dell and Napster are trying to do in the United States, by offering discounted musical content download packages in the American campuses.

However, it is very likely that the problem of copyright infringement will still be around for many years. In a world that is quite divided from the point of view of living standard, piracy can�t just disappear in an instant. And that�s because this is a moral problem, and unfortunately, in our world, moral values and money are usually two fundamentally opposite concepts.