Disabling File Sharing in Common Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Applications

Many people are surprised to find out that many popular P2P applications, such as BitTorrent and Limewire, automatically share out files from their computer! For example, if someone uploads a CD that they purchased legally, but then unknowingly let others download it, they are in violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and may face large fines and other legal actions. So, the best thing for everyone to do is to disable file sharing in these P2P applications and avoid the risk that someone else downloads from them, and leaves them in violation of policy.

Of course, no matter what settings you have on your P2P applications, the downloading of copyrighted materials that you do not have the rights to is always illegal and should be avoided.

For more information about UCD and P2P applications as well as the DMCA please visit the file sharing web page of the Student Computing Guide and the Copyright Infringement page of the UC Davis GetLegal site.

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