Copyright

Copyright is the exclusive right of authors to distribute, reproduce, and make their works available to the public. Its purpose is to allow creators to earn a living from their creativity and to give them control over how their work is used.

There are certain exceptions to this exclusive right. For example, users may make a limited number of copies for private use, or copies may be made for educational purposes, often with remuneration. Before the Internet, making copies of book pages for personal use was considered legal in most countries. Today, the question of how much sharing is allowed in the digital environment—such as sharing files online—is at the heart of debates about file sharing.

One of the greatest risks for young people using peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing applications is unwanted or illegal content. Illegal files are widely shared through P2P networks, and some are deliberately misnamed to trick users into downloading them.