Copynorms

As used by copyright theorists, the term copynorm (or more frequently copynorms) is used to refer to a normalized social standard regarding the ethical issue of duplicating copyrighted material.

Questions about the ethics of copying came to public attention as a result of peer-to-peer file sharing systems, such as Napster, Gnutella, KaZaA, BitTorrent and Direct Connect. Survey research indicates that most users of filesharing systems do not believe that it is wrong to download MP3 files of copyrighted music, even though such downloading may be unlawful.

These questions are important to legal theory, because the ability of copyright law to control the copying of digital material may depend more on voluntary compliance than on hypothetical criminal or civil actions against individuals.

Legal background

Copyright law is actually a collection of legal rules. Typically, copyright statutes confer a bundle of legal rights on the author or proprietor of a work (writing, a musical composition or an image), including the exclusive right to make copies of the work, subject to the fair use. Legal rules carry legal consequences. Violation of copyrights can give rise to civil and criminal liability.