BitTorrent의 저작권법상 책임에 관한 고찰* 49) －OSP 책임을 중심으로－

A Study on the Liability of BitTorrent in the Copyright Law －Focusing on the Liability of OSP－

BitTorrent는 하나의 규약임과 동시에 이러한 규약을 지키면서 만들어진 프로그램이 다. 그런데 BitTorrent는 기존의 P2P프로그램과는 달리 저작물을 직접 공유하지 않고 .torrent라는 저작물의 정보를 담은 파일만을 공유하도록 하고 있어 차이점이 존재한 다. 때문에 직접 저작물을 검색하지 않고 프로그램과 별도의 웹페이지를 통해서 .torrent 파일을 공유할 수 있는 공간이 필요하게 되었으며, 이를 통해 상업적 이익을 얻는 자들이 등장하였다. 본 논문에서는 이러한 BitTorrent구조에 따른 기존 OSP와의 차이점을 살펴보고 각각의 행위들을 기초로 어떠한 책임을 지게 되는지에 대해서 살펴보았다.

AThis paper investigates what is the definition of the BitTorrent, how to serves by certain compositions and determines the liability of several users in the copyright law. In other words, BitTorrent is both the protocol and the program which was made to observe this protocol at the same time. Although this program is also based on the P2P technology, it is distinct from the existing P2P technology that shares the copyrighted works directly and permits to share files contained the information of the copyrighted works under the name of ‘.torrent’. For this reason, the particular space must create to share .torrent files through the separate program and the webpage where doesn’t search the copyrighted works directly. This feature makes to break the premises that program providers earn a profit by the relevant program. Namely, it has structured this mechanism that program providers don’t make a profit based on the copyrighted works of others but system operators to administrate the website sharing the .torrent files through the specific program of BitTorrent client earn a profit. According to this phenomenon, sharing the .torrent makes to raise complicated issues whether to obtain the scope of the copyright infringement or not and the liability issues of the seeder to create the first file and the available person to download and then to upload newly. In addition, the change of sharing file structures by the BitTorrent restructures from the trilateral composition related to the liability of the direct infringers, the OSP and the copyright owners to the quadriliteral composition related to the liability of the direct infringers, the providers of BitTorrent client, website administrators and the copyright owners and it has become more complicated. And our copyright law regulates that the OSP to obtain commercial benefits by the P2P defines to the particular type of the OSP. So the treatment of BitTorrent deals with the existing OSP based on the P2P differently because it exists to the particular type to provide the specific program without the commercial benefit. As far as here to take the circumstances into this structural feature, the legal nature of the .torrent files is similar to the link’s and this paper examines the liability related the provided program and the OSP’s liability by operating a website.